


4Æm

by Dore_N



Series: The Fool, The Devil, The Wheel of Fortune, and The World [1]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical swearing, Established Friendship, Existential Dread, F/M, Gallows Humor, Johnny being unhelpfully helpful, POV Third Person Limited, Spoilers, Street Kid V (Cyberpunk 2077), Thanatophobia, and this just happened, bit of action bit of love, during Act 2 but after the Search and Destroy mission, idk i was playing the game, or helpfully unhelpful, pessimism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:34:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28180230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dore_N/pseuds/Dore_N
Summary: V collapsed, biting her right wrist so as to not scream in agony. An electric shriek beset her ears. Were these the trumpets Misty mentioned in her tarot cards, was this the moment of judgement? Then blow your trumpets, Gabriel, because these scrapped pipes are as good of a grave as any. Much better than the dump she had crawled out of a month ago, saddled with Johnny’s engram lodged into her brain.Out of all the goddamn times when the Relic could malfunction, ithadto have been now.
Relationships: Goro Takemura & Female V, Goro Takemura/Female V, Johnny Silverhand & Female V
Series: The Fool, The Devil, The Wheel of Fortune, and The World [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2109933
Comments: 69
Kudos: 368





	1. VSync On/Off

“Shit…!” 

V hissed in unison with the bullet that barely managed to graze the zipper of her jacket. She stumbled around a corner and behind a cargo crate, just as a flurry of three consecutive shots let their blast be heard, a dissonance ended only by the metallic sound of a reload.

 _“Fuck, Johnny, dissonance?! Was ‘overture’ too pretentious?! I can deal just…”_ she grunted, _“... f-fine without you… interjecting.”_

_“Yeah, I can tell. It’s all goin’ preem. I’m trying to keep your mind sharp, but I’m not surprised you haven’t noticed.”_

Of course, he was right. Try as she might, she could not ignore the fuzzy outlines of the malfunctioning Relic quickly smothering her senses: the screen tearing of the Kiroshis, followed by the sharp tinnitus in her ears, and finally losing control of her limbs. 

Out of all fucking times. ‘Couldn’t have just crashed on a couch. Hell, even an Abydos and piss-soaked alley behind a megabuilding would’ve been better. 

_“C’mon, V, concentrate!”_

She struggled to filter out the ringing, and covered her mouth with a shaky hand in a weak attempt to steady her panting. She was done for, that much she knew. Not even sliding into this unilluminated corner would help her now that the scavs caught her trail. The clang of metal soles on the metal scraps laying around the corridors echoed almost as loud as the Relic’s wretched taunting. 

Frantically, she scanned the room for a catwalk, a vent, a cracked wall - _anything_. The scraggly lines of her failing vision, combined with the pitch-dark corridor, made it even more difficult to notice any useful outlines.

 _“Come on, come on, COME ON,”_ she thought, though she couldn’t tell if Johnny didn’t throw a word in there as well.

Her eyes darted from corner to corner, wall to wall, as she listened to the steps closing in almost in slow motion. Straight lines, intact surfaces, not even a screw in sight…

The faint blue vapor of a heatmap languidly traced the ceiling, dissipating along the leftmost wall. A new gust sinuously followed its trail, and another, and another, leading to a grate tucked away in the furthermost corner. 

_“I have to go for it.”_

_“Tsk. You won’t make it,”_ Johnny said.

_“I have to try.”_

_“You won’t make it, you have to tear away the grate, to fend off however many of these scavs are behind you… You won’t make it, V! Better take a bullet head-on than die with one in your back.”_

_“You would know about that, wouldn't you?”_

_“Fuck’s sake, V! I’m trying to help you here!”_

_“Help me by having a bit of faith.”_

“Because I don’t,” she mouthed, as another sharp buzz and stinging shredding of images made her wince.

She took a deep inhale and peeked around the cargo crate: two scav pairs of shoes, possibly more and most probably she would have been able to tell if the damned noise in her ears didn’t get worse with each passing second. She blinked, and the familiar red outlines of the optics enveloped the corridor once again. Quick-hacks. Contagion. 

Wait. On one, deploy reboot optics on the closest one.

_Five._

_Four._

_Three._ She placed her hand on the floor, pushing herself halfway up. The pistol was put back securely in its holster. 

_Two._

_One._ Two rounds of bullets were discharged hectically by one of them, can’t say which. Can’t even differentiate between the internal mechanisms and gas escaping out a barrel - no way to tell what firearm it was. She turned around, focused on the feet and rebooted the closest scav’s optics.

The contagion was spreading fast and she heard four distinct voices wail in agony as the poison spread through their implants. She lunged forward, closing in the distance in three swift steps. A new wave of adrenaline started pumping in her veins, quickening the frame rate of her optics and matching them with the Relic’s delirious tearing of her vision. Two more rounds of shots passed her - no matter. She firmly gripped the grate, pushed herself up on the wall, opened up the mantis blade of her left arm and lodged it securely into the left wall. Luckily the air of this aircon unit loosened the screws just enough for the grate to be torn with one hand. 

V slid through the vent just in time to hear the trailing scavs approach the corner. She fished out a grenade from her pouch, pulled its pin and threw it out of the vent’s maw. Without waiting to hear the reaction, she crawled further and further, in a straight line followed by a chain of elbowed pipes, when the Relic made its presence felt again. 

She collapsed, biting her right wrist so as to not scream in agony. An electric shriek beset her ears. Were these the trumpets Misty mentioned in her tarot cards, was this the moment of judgement? Then blow your trumpets, Gabriel, because these scrapped pipes are as good of a grave as any. Much better than the dump she had crawled out of a month ago, saddled with Johnny’s engram lodged into her brain.

A few rounds of bullets pierced the vents right ahead. Particles of light bore through them, as a new line shot in a swirled line around them, closing in to her unfortunate resting place. Now that’s a difficult sound to misplace: it’s an SMG. V muffled her whimper and arduously pushed herself back away into an elbowed nook. 

“That should do it,” a hoarse and muffled voice said with an air of finality.

“Y’ think so?” another one croaked.

“There ain’t many places she could’ve gone to. We’ll shoot up the vents in the other rooms just in case and call it a night.”

“Aren’t we goin’ after the chrome?”

“Doubt it wasn’t mangled by these bullets,” the first voice said, followed by a cackle. “At least our little rat is in the aircon, ‘will be nice and chilly ‘til Rex comes back to work.”

The second voice cackled sycophantly. “Bet. Bet choom won’t be so happy with maintenance work anymore. Not even a good lung to make up for it.” 

And with that, the two scavs left the apparent room, slamming the door behind them. 

V bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut. Her whole body convulsed, her tendons tensed and shoulders locked. She leaned against the wall, trying to concentrate on anything else - desperately seeking to hear the silence of the room beneath her.

 _“This is it,”_ she thought, punctuating with a nervous laugh. _“Do you think a-anyone… would…?”_

_“Care? They’re your friends, V. How the hell should I know, have you seen many of my friends crying over my death?”_

_“You’re not helping.”_

_“Call someone who would.”_

She chuckled, a pathetic little sound somewhere between a hiccup and a cry. Her breath became ragged and her lungs struggled to fill. A tear slithered down her right cheek, past her cyberware - great, now her actual optics were physically malfunctioning.

_“That’s cold even for you, Johnny.”_

_“I’m serious. Call for help.”_

V stared at the grey wall across from her, tracing the thin scratch lines left by her distressed crawling and the muzzle of her assault rifle. 

“...Who?” she whispered.

 _“Don’t give me this, V,”_ Johnny said and even for him he sounded exasperated. _“Do you want me to do this? Take one of those pseudoendotrizines from Misty. I’ll call someone for you.”_

_“Who’ll even find me here? I don't even know if I have signal.”_

_“Fuck, V! I don’t know, but do you really want to die here?! You won’t make it out alive even if the Relic stopped malfunctioning. Have you seen how many scavs are around this place?! No amount of MaxDocs will help you!”_

He was right, again. It wasn’t so simple. Nothing had been ever since she got the stupid gig. She should’ve known that the moment Regina’s contact sent her across the city to Santo Domingo the stench wasn’t from the sewers she had to climb through to retrieve the shard, but from the incompetence of those who gathered the intel to begin with. _Professional mercs, my ass._ It was supposed to be a quick in-and-out incursion, only a handful of 6th Street brawlers - slap them each across the face, find the office, get the shard and be done with it. What this ‘ _Rye Williams_ ’ failed to mention was that this wasn’t a small hideout, but a whole maze of makeshift rooms, tunnels, catwalks, storage spaces all littered with the cams of a - frankly overkill - network system that she didn’t even manage to find the control panel of before they opened fire on her.

And those brawlers? Those usually harmless 6th Streeters? Scavs. All hungry for chrome and with a good eye for powerful under-the-counter implants.

V would’ve chuckled at the bizarre compliment had she not had to keep silent. Not that it mattered now that they thought hers were scrap metal. 

_Call someone._

She inhaled deeply, searching through her options. Her lids felt like lead and were dangerously close to closing. 

_Fainting?_

_No, no... just a quick nap._

_‘Keep your eyes open,’_ one of the voices, smoky and warm, rose above the foggy memories that played like an old, broken movie in the back of her mind. Her lids jolted open.

She couldn’t do this to Judy, she wasn’t cut out for this kind of job and especially not when she had Evelyn to worry about. Panam needed and was needed by her clan. Delamain might be able to send a car to wait outside for her, but there was no way out.

However, Goro… 

To ask him to save her again…

 _“You saved him too, he had better not forgotten that. But with a 'saka scum, anything is possible,"_ Johnny chimed in.

Hanako got what she needed. Goro got what he needed - he was on the sure path of avenging Saburo. There was no need for him to really come to her rescue, especially not in a scav-infested maze when he doesn’t even have his flashy implants.

_‘V…’_

His gravelly voice drowned out the tinnitus of the Relic. She remembered his calm and assured posture, his steady hands, his eyes softening as they talked and talked and talked over cold takeaway while scouting for an entrance into the Arasaka warehouse. Did he see her just as she saw him? Hard to say, he had always been hard to read. But one this was clear: she would miss reading his proverb-laced texts, his searches for a good place to eat, or his occasional selfies... and she desperately needed to at least talk to him one last time. At least Johnny had the decency to not comment on this now.

 _"Focus, Valerie, focus! Don't let that damned Relic whisk you away again!"_ she told herself, shaking her head as much as the dizziness allowed to.

She took out her phone and scrolled down to his name. Her vision became blurry and barely saw the name _‘Takemura’_ , as he had entered his own details into her contacts. And she dialed. 

And it rung.

And rung, as her lids slid like a heavy curtain over her eyes.

“V?”

She let out a small, strangled laugh. He had always been quick to answer.

“V? It's late. Is everything OK?” 

She tried to think of a way to give him a run-down of the situation, to make her condition sound less pathetic than it actually was. Nothing had gone right for a professional mercenary, and now she was at the mercy of the Relic.

“Goro… please... help me,” was all that came out instead.

A pathetic sounding plea. How fitting. No details, nothing. Somehow she doubted she had the energy to say more.

And still, she heard rustling from the other end of the call.

“Where are you? Can you send me some coordinates?” 

With great effort she zeroed in on the map on her location, and sent him the details.

“Be careful…” she added shakily. “I'm in a vent now. B-but the place… t-the place is swarming with scavs. It’s an underground… thing… and…”

“Say no more,” Goro interrupted her in a firm tone. “I will be there as soon as I can. Stay safe, V.”

With the call ended, she collapsed unceremoniously across the vent.


	2. Persistence Layers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please make sure you have Creator Style enabled for this chapter, as I have a bit of CSS and HTML formatting that will make reading easier! If you haven't clicked on 'Hide Creator Style' before, then disregard this note.
> 
> Thank you for reading! ❤

The wallpaper crunched satisfyingly in her fist. The small yellow dots and green squiggly lines - _no, flowers, mom said they were flowers_ \- made new shapes inside the folds, and Valerie was determined to find out just how complex they could get if she kept adding new pieces to them. So, methodically, she went back to the wall, to the space right behind her bed tucked away from prying eyes, and began to pick again at the white edges of the torn paper. 

A loud crash came from the kitchen, but it didn’t phase her. Once, these noises did startle her, but she became more and more used to them to the point where they were as common as the sound coming from the TV - like that tune from that boring grown-up program that presented some car chase or some important person going about their day. _Who was interested in that anyway?_

The noises started a few months ago, and dad said something about a ripperdoc. Valerie wasn’t completely sure what a ripperdoc was, but she knew that after a first visit to one mom returned with a silvery metal leg. It was rather cold to touch and had a few patches that were greenish-blue, but she could walk just fine with it. They had a good meal in that coming week - they had Kibble from one of those fancy colorful packets that didn’t just say ‘kibble’ on it! - and mom said the leg should sustain them for a few good months. Valerie, again, wasn’t quite sure how a leg could sustain three people when only mom was standing on it, but she made up her mind that it worked just fine when she sat on her lap. 

Dad’s condition, as they put it, didn’t get much better. His ribs continued to hurt, he was away from home the same amount of time that he did back when he worked for the Biotechnica farm on the other side of the city. She didn’t know what he did now, but it didn’t make him very happy - that much she could tell. Dad mentioned something about not affording a Trauma Team call, and mom always followed with _‘yet’_ , so much so that Valerie got into the habit of saying it before mom could answer. 

She crunched another wallpaper piece in with the growing ball of papers.

If you crunched them well enough, they could even cover the sounds from outside the door. 

In any case, mom’s leg needed more help - so she was told. The other one was replaced with another silvery leg, but this one didn’t quite look as good as the previous one. It looked like it was made from different types of silver, and some of the areas had some text over them. Dad said that this had to be the last and Valerie had to agree - why go through this if you couldn’t even have them in bright pretty colors? Mom, of course, said no, and they had another few good meals with the fancy Kibble. But this one didn’t taste quite as nice as the first box when neither of her parents were happy to eat it. They said it tasted fine, though, and that they were lucky to have it on the table. 

The next month noises started to happen. Dad rushed Valerie to her room before she could see what was happening. A few days before it, mom came back from the doctor with a new arm, and Valerie thought it was ridiculous - her previous worked just fine! Mom finally said it was for the good doctor to practice so he can help others, and he paid mom for being so brave to help. Fair enough, mom knows what she’s doing. She still wished to know what was happening when she would hear those noises.

Over the next weeks, those crashes were more and more frequent. Dad didn’t look so well, and every time Valerie asked him what happened, he would say that there’s nothing to worry about. Mom would sit on their bed, looking at the floor all day, with her long brown hair covering her face. Valerie had gone off those fancy-boxed Kibbles, something about them didn’t taste very well anymore.

She focused her attention again on the wall and began to peel off another piece. The door opened, startling her. She tried to fix the paper, but the piece wouldn’t stick anymore. 

“Hey there… Are you Valerie?”

There was a woman dressed in a dark blue uniform with a black vest, a big helmet in the same color and one of those plastic face coverings put up so she could see a part of her face. She had dark skin, brown eyes and she looked like she was smiling from behind the helmet - the corners of her eyes were crinkled, like the wallpaper she still had in her hand.

_Oh no, the wallpaper!_

“I’m sorry! I won’t do it again, I promise!”

“Do what, my dear?” the woman asked, confused.

“The wallpaper! I won’t peel it again, I promise!” Valerie reiterated, getting more worried about being yelled at.

The woman looked at her for a few seconds. “May I come in, Valerie?” 

She felt like whimpering, but the woman’s voice sounded warm. She remembered mom saying that people in this type of uniforms are like those groups they would see between the buildings and in the back alleyways, except they helped people, worked for the city and didn’t have to hide away. 

Valerie nodded, and the woman approached her bed. She knelt on one knee in front of her.

“My name is Alyssa,” she said, waiting for Valerie to acknowledge her - she nodded again.

“Nice to meet you, Alyssa.”

“I am here with the Night City Police Department. Your mom and dad are not feeling ok. They are going to go with the nice people from another team that we know, alright? They are called the Trauma Team, have you heard of them?”

Valerie nodded enthusiastically - of course she’d heard of them. “They finally came!” she said happily, jumping up on the squeaky mattress.

Alyssa looked at her for a moment and she could hear her sigh in her dark blue helmet.

“Have your parents been trying to get a hold of them?”

“M-hm!” Valerie hummed. “For months!”

Alyssa looked at the pillows on the bed, and said something to herself that sounded like _“that explains it.”_

“You must come with me, okay? We will go to the station in the NCPD car, we’ll hang out there for a bit and we’ll find you some place to sleep over for the night. Sounds good?”

She looked at Alyssa, puzzled. “What will happen to mom and dad?”

“We’ll explain at the station.” Alyssa pushed herself up and stretched her hand towards Valerie. “Come with me. We’ll both sit in the back of the car.”

As she jumped off the bed, the wallpaper started to peel off. One by one, in irregular pieces similar to those her tiny hands managed to tear away. They did not end in her fists, they did not scrunch: they simply flew out of the door and out of the open window, where a Trauma helicopter was stationed outside the megabuilding, waiting to receive a stretcher where a white mound of material laid serenely. The corners of the room, the moth-eaten burgundy couch, the grey carpet and that one side table that she could still remember all dissolved into cuboid particles. The sounds and the images became jumbled like a bad braindance - Judy would have a field day cleaning this all up. 

_“That your mom or pops?”_ Johnny appeared next to her. To her surprise, he did not lounge on the couch or sit on the windowsill.

_“Dad. My mom was long gone before I came out of the room. Probably took her to the police station.”_

_“If I had to make a guess, that looked like cyberpsychosis to me.”_

_“You’d be right. It took me some time to figure it out. Took me less time to figure out she wasn’t going to get better.”_

_“Did they tell you?”_

_“Tell me what, that my mom’s brain told her that she was more of a machine than human and my dad was her first and last victim?”_

V stopped. She looked at the stretcher, at the material fluttering in the wind before someone had the idea to secure it to the board. She moved towards the couch and took a seat.

_“No. But I don’t blame them, I wouldn’t know how to explain this to a three year old kid either. Neighbor called them, that’s how they even knew something was up. The irony is not lost on me that I may have more implants now than my mom did back then.”_

For the first time, Johnny seemed to be at a loss for words. He stood in silence, taking in the scene.

_“Did you keep in touch?”_

_“With Alyssa?_ ” V asked, moving her gaze towards him. _“Yeah, I did. Took me in for a while before they found me my first foster parents. Her twins were great and gave me one of their stuffed bunnies from when they were kids. I didn’t see much of her husband, I think he was a detective. Alyssa went way above her payroll, checking in with me as often as she could as I went from one foster family to another. It became less frequent when she was assigned to a zone D - Combat Zone. Last I heard from her she retired early and is now spending time with her family. I try not to ruin their happy days with my stories.”_

_“I see.”_

V chuckled - she couldn’t even tell where it came from, but she laughed nonetheless at the ridiculous situation she had found herself in.

_“Save your pity, Silverhand. I didn’t need it back when I was growing up, I really don’t need it now. You get used to this fast if you want to make it in this city. Better yet, help me figure out why I’m getting this flashback now.”_

_“What is there to figure out? It’s your brain and your memory,”_ Johnny asked, and, not waiting to be invited twice to drop the subject, he finally took a seat on the side table.

_“Yeah, but usually when the Relic malfunctioned I’d get a generous serving of the Silverhand Show.”_

Johnny shrugged. _“It’s all the same to me.”_

 _“Do you…”_ V stopped, taking a deep breath. _“Do you think this means my… I… am being close to being replaced by your engram? That this is the Relic’s way of saying that… you will soon be in charge?”_

He pondered for a moment. _“You’re thinking too much,”_ he finally answered, but he did not sound convincing anymore.

V turned her attention to the previously dissolving windowsill only to find a collection of particles randomly bumping into each other. The memory had come and gone. She used to replay it in her head over and over again as a child and teenager, to the point that even the most obvious details became muddied. The carpet for instance - sometimes it was red with dried blood, sometimes it was gray, sometimes it was in the exact same wallpaper as she had in her room only with purple flowers. She had gone through so many _could’ve_ and _should’ves_ that she lost count. A recurring one was “should’ve told mom that she shouldn’t go back to that hack ripperdoc to experiment on her implants with whatever junk he found in the streets''. As if a kid could even think of this.

Could’ve.

Should’ve. 

It’s done now. Just like her street urchin friends Gabby and Mod. Just like her foster dad Jung-hoon. Just like Jackie.

She’s had to come to terms with death from a young age yet the only one she could not conciliate was hers. 

_Fuckin’ preem._

A buzzing sound echoed from somewhere beyond the space where the apartment door would have been. Triplets of shrill notes. 

Johnny groaned. _“Don’t start using musical terms. I beg you, don’t put me through this.”_

V shushed him. _“Did you hear that?”_

_“Yeah, you’re dreaming of phone calls.”_

_“Dreaming of phone calls?!”_ she repeated sarcastically. _“Yeah right, as if I can’t come up with better dreams.”_

_“I can tell you with certainty that you can’t.”_

She readied herself to retort, but the words died on the tip of her tongue. She widened her eyes and looked back at the door. There it was, intact, grey with orange accents, and very much a stable image.

 _“Gotta go, I’m being called,”_ she said, jumping off the couch and sprinting towards the door.

 _“I ain’t goin’ nowhere,”_ Johnny said, and she heard rustling behind her as if he moved to the couch.

She grabbed the doorknob - _damn, they still had these old-fashioned handles for real?_ -, unlocked it and jumped through the blindingly white void.

V blinked once. Twice.

On her third attempt, her Kiroshis became accustomed to the light - or, rather, absence of light. Her limbs felt heavy and her lids struggled to remain open. Her neck hurt from the way she had collapsed right onto her right arm. From her inner pocket, the phone buzzed incessantly. Sluggishly, as if she had just woken up with a hangover, she reached to her jacket pocket and fished her phone. 

_Goro._

Three missed calls and about four messages. 

She quickly declined the call and navigated to the messages.

Takemura  
  
 **Today** 0:05 AM  
I have found an entrance. I will go search for a control room and will update from there. Stay put.  
277.093.622.00.1 **Today** 0:22 AM  
I have reached a terminal and got a hold of their security system. I am waiting for details of your location and I will look for a way out for you. These scavengers are still awake even at this hour. We must be careful.  
277.093.622.00.1 V? Are you still there?  
277.093.622.00.1 V? Please answer.  
277.093.622.00.1

She pushed herself up in a more comfortable position and hastily proceeded to write her reply:

_Relic malfunctioned and I fainted_

No, scratch that.

_Relic malfunctioned and I dozed off. I climbed into a vent from a corridor near one of their storage rooms. There was a big pile of chrome arms in the center of the room. I then crawled for another… what felt like forty-something feet further away from it. Some of it was in a winding line. A room’s right under me, I can see that the light’s on. They shot the vent a few times, some empty shells might be on the floor._

And sent.

She placed the phone in her lap and started massaging her neck. The plastic in the jacket’s collar didn’t help the fall either. At least the LEDs died out in this jacket, it would have not made for a good time trying to sneak around a scav den.

The phone’s screen lit up.

Takemura  
  
V? Are you still there?  
277.093.622.00.1 V? Please answer.  
277.093.622.00.1 Relic malfunctioned and I dozed off. I climbed into a vent from a corridor near one of their storage rooms. There was a big pile of chrome arms in the center of the room. I then crawled for another… what felt like forty-something feet further away from it. Some of it was in a winding line. A room’s right under me, I can see that the light’s on. They shot the vent a few times, some empty shells might be on the floor.  
277.093.622.00.1  
I know where it is. I will start looking for a way out. Can you walk, were you shot?  
277.093.622.00.1

_“He knows where it is?!”_ V thought, perplexed. _“How?! I just sent him the message?!”_

_“Take even longer to answer him, maybe the corpo suit will blow our cover by calling you five million times again. You already clearly spooked him out with that non-descript plea of help.”_

She ignored Johnny altogether and began typing her new message: the logical. _‘I’m fine’_ and _‘I’ll stay put’_ , in anticipation of Goro’s next request. It was now time to catch her breath, wipe away the sleep from her eyes and prepare to run again.

Though she allowed herself a quick and thankful smile for having him arrive so quickly… 

Or that he arrived at all.


	3. A* Search

The slow and methodical intake of air would have normally helped in clearing her mind had it not felt like inhaling rarefied air with every other breath. The synthetic tissue in her lungs was doing its job just fine in deceiving the biological tissue that this was, in fact, delectable air that they could fill themselves with. She could feel the honeycomb pattern helping them expand in what could only be described as a frankly freakish experience. This is why they said it was better to stick with a ripperdoc that has constantly done right by you and not trust any word of mouth on the street - should’ve gone to Vik to get this installed.

There was a persistent feeling of heaviness in her limbs, as if someone replaced all her bone marrow with the densest type known to man. V attempted to move, but without the urgency to read and respond to her messages to focus on, the slight whirlwind of vertigo settled in. At least the jacket was well-insulated enough, or else she would have been cold by now, sleeping in the aircon unit - _ah, no, there we go:_ her body betrayed her and she started to shiver.

 _“You look like shit_.”

Johnny appeared in the faint darkness of the tunnel. The chrome rim of his glasses glistened in her phone screen’s light. Though he was squeezed in front of her he still appeared as nonchalant as ever.

_“How can you tell?”_

_“You feel like shit, therefore you must also look the part.”_

_“Can’t argue with that logic,”_ V said, inhaling sharply while trying to stretch her muscles. 

A bit of nibble, a drink - _something_ should help her regain a bit of energy before Goro’s next message would be received. She began rummaging again through her jacket inner pockets, hoping that she still had that All Foods veggie paste and - _oh!_ \- maybe a small water capsule. 

She found a small sachet of soy paste, but her disappointment was immeasurable when she found out that the only liquid she was carrying was just a sachet of tomato juice. 

It was better than nothing.

 _‘Savoring’_ was a strong word for the amount of enjoyment the nutritional packets really contained in them, but nonetheless she took her time to finish her meal. From her past experiences with the relic’s malfunctions, what went down did not necessarily mean it would stay down, and certainly not so close after an episode. The soy paste tasted salty and sour as expected, which would not have been bad had it not have to be followed by the ‘tomato’ juice that tasted like the color red. It was, however, still not the worst meal she’d ever had.

Her phone screen flashed with a new call pop-up. V quickly licked the inside of the soy paste sachet clean and stuffed the empty packages back into her jacket’s pocket. Now confident that she could take Goro’s call, she patched him directly through her ear implant. 

“Hey,” she greeted him in a low voice, in an attempt to not make more noise than she had already made.

There was a solid moment of silence before she could hear his answer. The soft puff of a sigh was picked up by the microphone. 

“You had me worried,” Goro began, in a low and calculated voice to match her own. “I had not heard you sound this distressed since Yorinobu’s men chased us off from the landfill.”

Ah, _that_ time. The sudden intake of adrenaline must have concealed her own panic from herself, because she did not remember being this distraught, certainly not comparable to being plucked out of a landfill more dead than alive, and being shot at while riding in a fast-moving vehicle so close after being given a second chance at life. She could almost hear Johnny’s vehement protest simmering somewhere in the back of her mind, but she brushed it off. Her voice must’ve been way more sincere than she thought.

_“I’m going to be sick. Don’t tell me he will start making googly eyes at you too.”_

“I’m sorry,” V said and hoped that the words would carry that same sincerity. She ignored Johnny altogether. “And I… know it’s even more difficult for you now to cross Night City.”

That would be an understatement; it was hard to imagine that the Arasaka heir would not try to save their image and not send squads after squads to catch his sister’s kidnapper. 

“I take my debts seriously, V. You helped me avoid a sure death, and I shall do the same for you.”

“At the very least you can’t be too happy about me destroying your night.”

“I was only watching TV. I would rather be here than watch Hideshi Hino. The memory he brings back is not pleasant.”

A flashback played before her eyes, of an elderly man pressuring Goro to say a silly catchphrase that he had probably never heard in his life prior to that moment. She stifled a laughter, remembering his exasperated look when he realized that they would not go into Wakako’s office any time soon if he did not comply. 

“In any case, I have found an escape route for you,” Goro’s voice snapped her back to the present. “You will have to go back to the corridor you climbed into the vent from. Be careful, it looks like there was an explosion, but the tunnel has not collapsed.”

“Ugh, yeah that was me. Horrible, horrible idea to blow up a grenade underground.”

Goro hummed disapprovingly. “You will have to then retrace your steps towards the room you have told me about before.”

“Copied. The one with the cyber arm implants. I remember how to get there. What’s your status?”

“Do not worry about me. I am close to a room where a group of scavengers are playing poker, and they are well entranced by their game.”

“Damn, do these people not have work in the morning?!”

Goro chuckled. “I will give you more instructions once you get there.”

With slightly less effort than she thought she would have to put into this movement, she began crawling back through the series of elbowed pipes. No matter how careful she was, the scraping of the metal buckle of her belt, the zipper of her jacket and the metal aglets of her boots’ laces still scraped on the bottom of the vent. Occasionally, the rifle on her back would twist unexpectedly and its muzzle would hit the walls. 

“How’s the corridor? Any patrols?” V whispered, while redressing her speed of movement.

“No, none.”

She continued crawling, and after what felt like twenty feet the blown-up entrance of the vent came in sight. Carefully, she peeked around the edge of the entry and found the corridor empty as foretold. _Well_ , empty of any scavs. The cargo crate had spilled its contents, revealing more implants than she really wished to see.

Dropping onto the ground, she began to prepare herself for the stealth movement to come. She gathered her hair into a tight ponytail and swirled it onto itself a few times, before tucking it into the collar of her plain dark t-shirt. The jacket was zipped up, securing her hair from falling out of its constraints. Her hair was a dark shade of navy if no light shone directly onto it, but her tips and some strands inside the underlayer were dyed green and they would stand out a lot more. She tucked away her braided strand more symbolically than anything, as she knew it was not going to last there for too long - it never did.

“Hey, Goro?” she said, as she moved her attention to her boots.

“Yes, V?”

“Thanks, for all of this. I... really appreciate it.”

She refastened the laces on her right boot - the only one that came undone as she was crawling, and was moving onto checking the left again by the time Goro answered:

“Thank me when we get out of here.”

There was no glass on the walls nor windowed doors to enclose the corridor, but still she dropped closer to the ground, crouching to make as little noise as possible. The question remained if NCPD even knew about this den, if it was yet another one that slipped under the radar due to sheer volume of crime in the city or due to supplying enough important warehouses with the collected implants. Maybe it was another poor group of mercs to be arranged to come back and prune the bastards, or to provision them with new stock. 

_What a terrible way to die_ , V thought, though her fate wasn’t much lower on the list of least preferable ways to expire. 

All the cargo boxes’ contents would find a new purpose: after being inspected by a select few in the operation, they would go to be sorted and distributed to an even more exclusive group of ripperdocs - she’s had a few adrenaline-junkie friends venture close enough to one of these warehouses to observe this process. Fortunately enough, there weren’t many that she had encountered nowadays that would turn to scavs for their supply, but they existed and they thrived in the city nonetheless. 

Or maybe _she_ didn’t even know if the docs she bought implants for actually spoke the truth. Maybe her ankles used to belong to a private inspector that got too close to one of these dens. Maybe her synaptic accelerator was plucked right out of some Tyger Claws’ nervous system. Hell, maybe even her ballistic coprocesor was cut from some innocent passer-by’s hands and delivered right under Vik’s nose under the guise of a better-sourced implant.

Who’s to say. 

Before she left for Atlanta, it didn’t use to be this unusual in Night City for an implant to have had multiple owners in their lifecycle. How happy Jasper and Connor were when they came back to their usual hangout place in Heywood, just like Sabine, Artyom and Zarah were before them. Eager to present their new flashy implants that were neither flashy nor new, and sometimes they would even have the previous owner’s name scratched into the visible part of the chrome. Artyom’s had the name _‘Artem’_ inscribed in Cyrillic letters, and he tried for weeks to fool them that it was just another spelling of his name.

So she moved onto _‘chrome’_. Not everyone could afford this finish for their cyberware, yet the name still persisted in their slang, as either a feeble attempt to be in line with the upper-class or to mock it.

V didn’t really want to think where her mother could have ended up once the NCPD ran out of resources to deal with her. 

She reached the storage room, with the multitude of severed cybernetic arms in boxes. Just arms. A roomful of goddamn arms. Her survival instinct almost tempted her to look after a new mantis blade upgrade, but her morals told her that she was being horrible. That’s what one had to do on the streets, adapt or be eaten alive by the city. Funny how with the evolution of these implants people managed to devolve to being able to reuse them this way. 

_If only this had happened years before, maybe..._

V looked around for a camera lodged in a corner. A blinking red LED caught her attention, and she waved at it.

“I’m in the storage room,” she whispered.

“Good. Go through the door to your right.”

Carefully, she moved as instructed and pushed on the handle.

“Locked,” V sighed. “You’ll have to wait for me to pick it.”

Goro didn’t respond, but nonetheless she took it as an invitation to proceed. Picking locks had never been her specialty, but she thought of herself as having decent skills and just enough to get her by. It was, just like everything else, gained from the streets. The kids exchanged these skills and once one of them learnt one it spread like wildfire. Her last foster parents had not been happy with it and gave her an ultimatum. Naturally, it didn’t stick. She didn’t live in that household for long.

With a click, the door was unlocked. 

“I’m in,” she announced Goro and walked forth.

The room was dark and it took her a bit of time to adjust to the almost complete lack of light. She tried to focus her Kiroshis on anything that they could latch onto - some heat signature, _anything_.

“Can you see the stairs?” Goro asked softly. 

“Can _you_ see any stairs?” she retorted incredulously. “It’s almost pitch black here.”

“Keep to the wall on your left. You will find the steps.”

As instructed, V placed her hand on the wall and took small steps until she bumped with the tip of her boots into a notch.

“Anything I should be prepared for at the end of this?” she asked as she began her ascension.

“Not that I can see yet.”

Climbing the stairs took her to a dimly illuminated corridor. Correction, _another_ corridor, as simple as all the other corridors in this goddamn place, with its only distinctive details being one extra cargo box compared to the others. She supposed that the menacingly flickering lightbulb hanging from a single cable would have to suffice as an element to remind her that _yes_ she was moving forth through this maze and not just walking in blasted circles dictated by a corp-

 _“You’re angry when I don’t listen to you, you’re angry when I listen to you… can you make up your mind any time soon?”_ V thought angrily as she resumed her stealthing stance. _“Where do you even want me to go, ‘think I mapped this place out?”_

_“You know I don’t like him, regardless if he was the only viable choice for this rescue or not. And trust me, this is by far the least offensive thing I could say about a ‘saka badge.”_

_“You don’t have to like him.”_

_“Yeah, you do enough for the both of us.”_

She had half a mind to conjure images of all the reasons why Johnny would be correct in his statement, but instead she focused on the few details that did line the corridor. At the end of it, right underneath the flickering light were boxes stacked on top of each other, in addition to those littered along the way. Together with the ones in the storeroom downstairs, they almost completed a trail of chrome. The question was just how close she could be to the end - or _one_ end - of it, and _what_ would enclose it.

Heavy steps echoed in the corridor. _Clink, clank_ \- metal in the soles. They stopped for a moment and the flickering bulb stabilized its light. V pressed her body closer to the wall on her left, behind one of the cargo boxes. Best case scenario, this scav would walk in a straight line and get the fuck away from her if there was a wat further, without alerting any of his friends. Worst case scenario, she would have to prepare for a takedown. Her ‘ganic heart was pumping fast, filling her bioplastic vessels. The steps approached the intersection and stopped yet again. The light is not dim enough in her location - another solution was needed. Quickhacks: reboot optics, jump over the box, chokehold. Dump the scav in one of these boxes to not alert any other patrol. 

The steps continued, moving away from the intersection.

V closed her eyes and let out the inhale she did not realize she held in.

She must be getting closer to the end of the trail. Possibly one of their sorting rooms or one of their dismemberment labs. _Technically_ , the shard could be in there. She had been so close to failing the mission, yet _so close_ to finishing it successfully. 

_Just one small incursion._ She had not failed many gigs before, and she was not prepared to lose cred over one meager blip. 

“The patrol is gone now,” Goro’s voice broke her chain of thought.

“So it seems,” she whispered through her teeth. “You could have told me.”

“I saw him no earlier than you did. You looked too focused on your steps. A startled soldier is a dead soldier.”

“Isn’t a dead soldier also a dead soldier?”

Goro seemed to ignore her quip altogether. “At the end of this corridor to the right there is a large room. You will find a small group of scavengers removing implants from a body. Go through it. Be swift and keep to the shadows, they are absorbed now but I cannot tell for how long they will be.”

“Got it.”

The route she was being sent on was completely different than the one that got her trapped inside the maze to begin with. V couldn’t recognize the layout nor could she remember any room like the one she was supposed to go through. With a double door left agape, the lab was completely accessible through two points, the other being a doorway covered with two clear plastic sheets. Three operating tables similar to the ones she often sat in at the ripperdocs’ were lined across the room, each holding a patient in different stages of dismemberment. While the one currently being worked on still had its limbs in place, the furthest one to the left was only a torso, while the one furthest to the right had its torso wide open. A chill settled in her bones, dangerously close to stopping her in her tracks. The pistol was loaded, and her hand was next to the holster - it would be so easy to stop them, destroy their den and rid Night City of another scavenger group. Survival meant to go against the shades of the city. 

But sometimes, survival meant to let the shades consume you.

The plastic panels rustled as she pushed past them, which she had timed with the noisy removal of an elbow joint. She took cover behind a solid desk, pondering the next move. Two doors: one leading back to the main corridor by the way it was positioned, and the other leading… _well_ , somewhere else. She looked around for any cams hoping to find the familiar red LED blinking back, but found none. Given that she went through all this effort to leave the main corridor, surely the route could not require to return to it.

_Other door it is._

A hallway opened up ahead of her, with another crossroad. It was starting to get warmer than in the previous locations, which prompted V to open up the collar of her jacket. A large cart was stationed outside double doors to her left, and a walkway extended straight ahead.

“Where to?” she asked, scouring the ceiling for any cams.

“What are the options?”

“There’s another smaller corridor straight ahead and a double door to the left. It’s starting to get rather warm here.”

“Close to the furnace room…” Goro almost mumbled to himself. “Take the corridor again.”

Without waiting for another complaint from Johnny, V began making her way ahead. It was lucky that she had a stop in Japantown prior to this, those new synthetic muscles were coming in handy with all the crouching.

“V, turn around.”

In one smooth motion, she took out her pistol and aimed it at the dark corridor, pressing her body to the wall. She would not go out without a fight, whoever it may be.

“A better route has just opened, come back to the double doors,” Goro’s voice came through her phone link.

She inhaled sharply. “What was that about a startled soldier again?”

“There is no time for riddles.” 

Ah, of course. 

“You will go through the furnace room,” he continued, “and this should lead you closer to the room I am in. There are a few scavengers working there, be quick and take the door straight ahead from the one you will enter from.”

She holstered her pistol and made her way back to the crossroad. With the new sense of urgency, the distance seemed to close in a fraction of a second. At a more precise inspection, _indeed_ , the cart was labelled ‘for the furnace’ and it was currently empty - probably waiting for the scavs back in the lab to be finished. Past the double door - _fire doors_ , as she could now tell - the air was even hotter, and dried blood was splotched onto the floor. And past the second set of doors…

A massive room was opened. An imposing furnace was working incessantly in the center, with a bright fire roaring and engulfing deformed pieces being thrown inside by two burly men. Another three were hunched over some papers at the other end of the room, occasionally glancing towards the furnace. There was no time to spare. Quickly she assessed the rest of the area: metal crates neatly arranged close to the furnace, a catwalk on the far right, pipes running through the ceiling and down the walls, the promised doors right ahead, and two filled carts similar to the one back at the crossroad stationed close to the left wall. 

_Bingo_.

Carefully and nimbly she squeezed between the first cart and the wall. There was a gap between this and the next and she waited for another toss in the fire before she lunged towards the cover. 

A new pair of steps resounded in the room: an unaccounted scav walked towards the doors, opened them, peered past into presumably another corridor and promptly closed them again. He took his place right next to them, leaning on the wall and looking at his phone.

 _Fuck_.

No matter, it was all fine, she just had to wait him out.

His gaze moved between the phone screen and the catwalk in front of him, almost as if he was waiting for someone. Hopefully, that would also mean that it would make him leave his new post. With his right hand, he began tapping the back of the phone - _yes_ , definitely impatiently waiting for someone. He should leave as soon as they come in sight.

“Oi! Can you grab me the next batch?”

Her breath halted.

“Give me a moment, I don’t have three hands.”

V quickly took out her phone and navigated to the last contact.

 _I can’t get out and they’ll spot me soon. I have to attack while I still have the element of surprise,_ she sent to Goro.

“I need them - NOW!” the first scav roared. 

Goro’s answer came swiftly in her ears. “Reinforcements will come soon if you do, look for another solution.”

“‘Nother batch coming right up,” the second scav grumbled, and footsteps followed.

 _have to_ , she typed quickly.

The message remained unsent. Her hand instinctively moved onto the pistol’s handle and unholstered it carefully. 

As she proceeded to silently place her phone back into the pocket, a rustle in her earpiece made her wince, followed by the sound of a submachine gun’s rounds being shot - doubled by noise coming from beyond the coveted doors.

“Open fire,” Goro bellowed. “Now!”


	4. Bounding Volumes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone! Cheers to a much better year, and I hope you are all safe and well!
> 
> Special thanks to [Alexis](/users/Alexis_Trvlyn/) for beta-ing and all her wonderfully helpful suggestions! ❤
> 
> Thank you all for stopping by and for your support for this fic ❤

The effect was almost instantaneous.

The sudden uproar outside the incinerator room caused the - _what sounded like_ \- two of the assistants to run towards their firearms, leaving the carts she was hiding behind. The heavy footsteps trampled on the ground in erratic haste, in a cadence mismatched with the noises of the fired bullets.

It was only a matter of moments before more would join them, adding to the heightened pulse of the hideout.

V’s own blood started rushing through her veins, pumping fast through the bioplastic vessels galvanized by the incoming battle.

A decision needed to be made, and fast. She could lunge forward towards the scrambling group and catch them unawares as they hurried out the door. They wouldn’t expect to be flanked, not from a room that had previously seemed out of the ordinary. On the other hand, more scavs could come through the other door from the bowels of the hideout at any moment, overwhelming whatever numbers Goro had accounted for when he opened fire.

Only one choice could be made.

She closed her eyes, focusing on the rounds raining outside the incinerator.

_And a choice was made._

V pressed her back onto the cart, as much as the strapped precision rifle allowed it. She peeked towards the exit door: two rather lean scavs dressed in long dark leather coats, mud-caked cargo pants and combat boots, were following one of the more muscular men that were shoving the bodies into the fire. He had hastily pricked up a rifle and nothing else, as his arms and back were bare, and his bottom half was covered by an aramid-weave jumpsuit tied at the waist.

Unprepared.

That’s what she liked to see.

At least two other scavs were left in the room, but there was no time to wait for them to leave. Quickly, she turned her attention to the entrance doors. A good five-and-a-half to six feet were in-between the closest cart and the doors. Above, pipes ran through the ceiling. Nothing else along the wall or within her reach that she could use.

_Cart it is._

It needed to be moved closer to the doors.

She shuffled towards the cart, taking off the rifle and placing it at her side. With her back firmly against the metal and her hands flat onto the ground, she raised her feet to the wall, pushing as hard as she could. The cart would have reached her chest, and it was filled enough for hands and legs to hang over its brim - that she remembered from the initial assessment of the room.

_Thank fuck for those titanium bones._

The rounds shot outside timed with the cart shaking much better than if she had planned it, though in her rush she did not succeed in only moving it closer to the doors. Instead, it also tipped over its side, and the lifeless bodies were scattered on the floor. This should still stop an incoming group, just not for long. V threw a quick glance over her shoulder and saw the trail reach the remaining brawny scav previously attending to the furnace.

She blinked, activating her optics scan. Even the accelerated scanning algorithm could not combat her heavy breathing, and the crosshair slipped its target. On the third attempt, the details came through: subdermal armor, high fire resistance, some degree of hacking and shock resistance. A decent bounty on his head. No weapon in his hands yet, but something told her that those hands were more than sufficient. The distance between them was not at all ideal. There was no way she could account for the disparity in weight and what looked like at least a seven inch height difference.

And he definitely did not look pleased to see her there.

That’s one thing they had in common.

V returned to the temporary safety of the cart and grabbed her rifle - an M-179E Achilles that she had looted from the Raffen Shiv Nash in the Badlands about a week ago. ‘ _Wraiths’_ was engraved crudely on its metallic blue sides, and a stylized ‘ _Widow Maker’_ was proudly adorning its grip.

It was high time it lived up to its name.

That is, if anyone could even look at one of these bastards in this way.

In one breath, she turned around and aimed for his head. A shrill bang escaped the barrel. The hexagon-shaped round was shot and lodged around the metallic spine that spiked out of a headless and naked body. _Fuck_ , he had picked one off the pilled pile on the ground. The shield, gripped by its neck, was beginning to close in on her. V shot another round of bullets, aiming to the exposed shoulder of the scav hidden behind. It did little more than stop in his subdermal implant. He taunted her with a guttural crow.

But there was something more important missing from the racket: there were no other shots in the room.

The other attendant must have been gone by now.

She gave the now-empty toppled cart one last push towards the doors and almost mechanically she jumped out of her hideout and began running towards the other side of the furnace. She had to incapacitate him quickly - if both of the men that were tasked with furnace duty were similar, there was no chance for either her or Goro to escape two of them in close quarters. Her breath was shallow, and she could almost hear her heart racing. Heavy footsteps and the yells of different voices were muffled by both sets of doors. The tipped cart would not keep the incoming group for long.

The exit door opened - one of the assistants. He was too close to him, and this time he was prepared. She blinked once, activating her optics analysis again, zeroing on the hacking resistance. _10%._

 _Nova_.

V rapidly deployed a weapon jammer quickhack as the muzzle was aimed at her head. The daemon reached its destination, and the trigger responded with a blunt _click_. Running, she brought herself lower to the ground and slid in his direction, kicking him in his shins. She saw his expression turn, in rapid succession, from confident to worried to terrified. The scav fell to his knees, she moved behind him, placed his neck into her elbow and applied pressure. In one split second she saw her other target closing in on her, with no shield to cover him but with a small scope of a pistol covering his right eye. She ducked and twisted right in time to avoid his bullet, but his own choomba wasn’t as lucky.

The body was dropped. The surviving scav’s mouth twisted in a snarl. She scrambled forth towards the other side of the furnace.

So he did need a weapon after all.

 _Preem_.

A trail of deafening bullets followed her steps as she zig-zagged as much as her clambering feet allowed her to. Her eardrums rang with every one of them like a grisly metronome. She bit her lower lip, in an attempt to calm herself down. Now at opposing ends of the roaring furnace, she couldn’t see the scav anymore but knew he was assessing the battlefield likewise.

A loud _thump_ came from the entrance door. The new group was trying to breach through.

Shrill bullets were fired behind the exit door. She had to reach Goro.

The only hope was to catch this opponent with his back turned.

She needed a damn leap of faith, that’s what she needed.

She searched for any gaps in the scaffolding around the furnace.

 _Thump! Thrrum! Bang,_ the noises came from the barred door.

Something of use had to be there. _Anything_.

She looked up to the pipes - a vague shine was coloring the metal. Still not enough.

_Think, think, THINK!_

Her attention was caught by a dismembered leg that made it farther than the trailing mountain spilled from the cart.

 _You have enough faith for the both of us. This one’s for you, Misty_ , V thought as she kicked the leg towards the wall. She threw a recon grenade in the opposite direction, hoping that the scav will not catch her bluff and instead run towards the leg. Rushing after the grenade, she brought the rifle into aiming position.

_Bang! Thump!_

Only one chance.

She slid over the floor again, her jacket’s raised shoulder pieces scraping with a dull sound. The ClearVue’s red crosshair aimed preemptively at where his head could be.

 _Fuck_ , _I hope I got his height right_.

_Thump! Thump!_

Her bluff had worked. The scav was caught in the scope. The trigger was pulled.

A loud bang reverberated in the room once again, punctuated by gushing blood.

His body fell to the floor and V did not spare a second look towards it, gathering herself off the ground and running towards the exit.

Another shot bursted behind her, and a bullet perforated her jacket collar dangerously close to her neck. The previously barred doors opened, loudly crashing into the walls. V swerved through a dark corner and into an open corridor, illuminated further ahead by blurred muzzle flashes. The fired bullets residue clung to the flares in undulating fumes. The fight still roared ahead of her. The scent of hot, almost suffocating rust filled her nostrils. A few clothed bodies were lining the sides, curled into themselves. Cyberware’s polished chrome scintillated in the vague light of the open fire: some stuttered breathing - some hurt scavs, some dead _._

Goro had to be close-by.

“I’m,” V stopped and swallowed; the words felt like shrapnel against the inside of her throat. “I’m out, where are you?” she announced into her microphone.

There was a long pause as she made her way through the corridor and past the injured people as swiftly as she could. Holding out to the hope of finding another corner before the group behind her would catch up.

A heavy breath followed by the shots of a submachine gun came through the comms, but no voice. The flares disappeared into the left wall. She hastened her steps.

Carefully rounding at a newly discovered corner, she reached the entry of the battleground. Smoke. Bright yellow and orange flashes. The flat crack of assault rifle shots. The odd shrill buzzing sounds of some number of submachine guns.

And only one purple flare around a muzzle - one submachine with homing projectiles that seemed to find their targets with extreme accuracy.

That was either a scav with a Dian or Goro with a Shingen.

Maybe Hanako managed to get Goro his smart link implant back.

 _Please_ let that be the case.

Crouching through numb bodies, metal crates and hastily tipped drawers she made her way through the corridor. The rifle was strapped on her back again, pistol in her left hand and the mantis blade opened on her right arm. Cutting through unassuming scavs turned towards the more visible target ahead of them; some clean lacerations, some that needed more force to dislodge them from titan bones.

The assailants became clearer and her Kiroshi analytics were deployed again. She saw Goro behind the short Arasaka-made gun. The optics managed to catch a dashing scav that reached his location. On the next blink the analysis was halted and she pointed her raised pistol. Forcefully the scav was pushed back into a wall - Goro had hit him with the side of his gun and then promptly hid behind a metal crate. The breath that V had held escaped her lips.

“Door. Next to you. Quickly,” his voice came through the comms, fractured words between heavy gasps.

She looked around and saw the closed door. A barrage of bullets flew anew as she pushed into the room. It was as dark as the corridor and she palmed around for any solid surface she could find to guide herself with. She walked further nonetheless, hoping to not trip on anything. Through the obscurity of the room, the shelves and cold racks felt like yet another blasted maze.

_No? Nothing this time around, Johnny?_

A wall was hit. A door somewhere in the room was opened, then closed and hasty steps followed. A sharp ringing enveloped her ears and her pulse was spurred. Analytics deployed - the heatmap of a familiar build and height. The door was opened again with a slam against the wall.

“Open the door,” Goro rasped next to her and pressed his back against hers.

Frantically she palmed the wall for any semblance of a frame, walking along until she reached the cold surface of a ridge. She searched for the handle - none. She examined the wall next to the door and found its panel. The screen lit up.

Red light.

_Access denied._

With no time to curse, she jacked into the panel, ready to deploy a daemon.

 _Come on, come on, show me a vulnerability in the network,_ V thought as her eyes scrolled over the unveiled patterns.

A trail of hexadecimals revealed itself. The screen switched to green. The door was unlocked with a satisfying _click_.

They rushed through the exit, swapping places as they turned at a corner. It was her turn now to cover his back as he guided them through the winding corridors. Barely perceptible was the change from the sharp and intense tang of fired bullets in the enclosed environment to the clean scent of the outside world.

V must’ve been going mad if she thought Night City had a fresh air.

They stepped outside and she stopped for a moment, trying to make sense of where she had left Jackie’s Arch Nazaré. A firm grip on her wrist dragged her away instead, a few feet away towards a lit narrow street.

She’d have to remotely give the motorbike’s autonomous navigation a destination once the coast was clear.

Goro guided them towards a navy Archer Hella stationed close by. The doors were unlocked and she jumped in the passenger seat, taking the rifle off and placing it between her legs. He quickly filled the driver’s seat, placed his gun on the backseat and started the engine. V scoured the street for any scavs that may have followed. In what felt like the moment immediately after, they were reversing. Fast. Gripping the pistol tight, she readied herself to lean out of the window at any second if needed, with her gaze focused on the intersection that was further and further ahead.

They swerved onto the main street, barely dodging an incoming car. She felt her throat constrict. Neon lights flashed before them, their images blurred by the speed with which they passed them. Luckily there were not many others driving at that hour.

A car swerved onto the street from the one they had just left, quickly closing in. Through the smoked glass of their windscreen she could see the glimmer of a gun’s polished metal in the bright lights.

Without sparing any second, she leaned out of the window and aimed for their front-right tire.

Before she could see the aftermath, Goro veered to the right into another narrow street.

And another veer.

And another.

After what felt like the rails of a roller coaster straight out of Pacifica, he finally found a cluster of overfilled dumpsters and parked the car with a loud screech. The engine was turned off.

The loud drumming of her heartbeat was all that V could hear.

He had made an awkward parking in his attempt to conceal the car. From her seat she could partially see the street. Around them to the left, a small block of flats was annexed to a megabuilding, both enclosing the area.

_Ah._

A dead end.

She slowly holstered her pistol and snaked her hand towards the rifle’s grip.

Goro made a movement as well, leaning closer to the window: one hand on the dashboard and the other on her seat, his fingers nearly brushing her thigh. She could almost feel the warmth radiating from his cheeks, and his scent filled her nostrils - a mixture of spiced cologne, musk and sweat.

She swallowed hard, pushing away the realization of their closeness out of her mind.

The car came and passed the intersection, and with it they both let out a breath of relief.

V turned to him with a crazed smile tugging at her lips. Goro shifted his gaze towards hers, pinning her with piercing blue eyes before noticing her growing grin - and he all but gave one of his own. He lowered his gaze, nodded contentedly and returned to his seat.

“I guess we lost them.”

Goro hummed approvingly. “So it seems.”

“Good driving out there, I must say,” she said, lazily tilting her head towards the street. “I was never able to do this sort of slalom with a Hella.”

“It’s… as you say - all in the wrist.”

“What now? Back to watching some more Hideshi Hino?”

He gave her a briefly offended look. “It is not too late to turn the car around.”

A sliver of laughter bubbled in her chest, growing and growing with each passing heartbeat. V couldn’t tell why this particular joke was so amusing to her, but it simply produced an avalanche of hearty mirth that she could not begin to stop. In the corner of her eyes she saw Goro recline his head onto the plush rest, not even attempting to comment on her racket.

She felt mad.

Maybe she was.

At least they were both in accord that this should indeed continue unadulterated.

“Thank you,” she said, turning to face him as the laughter subdued into a low giggle. “Truly.”

For a moment, Goro’s eyes crinkled, and a smile curled beneath his dark mustache.

“Let’s go,” he said warmly. “I will take you home.”


	5. Linear Interpolation

Through the droplets of rain trickling down the dusty windows of a Hella, the city looked dull. The flashy mask of a million neon lights could not fight to cover the rot that plagued its veins. Ads promising a better future flashed along the street like a barrier between _us_ and the festering decay. A better future? What a joke. _We_ had killed the promise before it had even left our lips.

_“Johnny.”_

_“I said, but I could tell that my much cynical partner was past such contemplations.”_

_“Johnny!”_

_“I said again, more indignantly this time. I considered offering him a smoke.”_

_“Johnny!”_ V repeated, tapping her right temple. _“Cut it out, will you? I’m not in the mood for this.”_

 _“Yeah, I know what you’re in the mood for,”_ Silverhand jabbed and she could almost hear him roll his eyes.

With buzzing noise inside her head now ignored, she returned her attention to the city. A light rain had begun shortly after they had left their refuge, and it made the streets look like they were glazed in a smooth mixture of fluorescent colors and tar. Following their reflection, the ads caught her eye: NightCorp’s intercontinental transport set to finalize in 2080 - _we'll see if I catch that train_. Real Water, for 99 eddies a gallon - _as if anyone could really tell if it’s real or not._ Allworld Insurance, promising to get rid of pollution in the buyer’s sector - _that ship has sailed long ago, it would need every single person inside the sector to buy it._

Maybe Johnny was right and she was becoming more cynical.

There were some other posters that V almost didn’t even register. She briefly remembered one vague conversation of Hailey, one of her foster moms that she couldn’t quite bring herself to call ‘mom’, and her friend talking if the ads had always been _‘this sexual’_. The topic interested her far less now than trying to recall Hailey’s voice. Bit shrill - _no, that was her friend, Whatsherface_. Nasal, perhaps? _No, that still doesn’t sound right._ Maybe...

...Blank.

She couldn’t remember.

Four years with her and all that was left was the name. Even her appearance was reduced to the back of a teased coiffure of an unidentified color, with a blurred collar peeking from the neatly arranged strands, all framed by a driver’s seat.

Goro reached out to the radio panel and changed the station back to Royal Blue. The wailing notes of a saxophone took the place of a synthesizer.

 _Everything was bound to change._ One by one, the memories would leave her brain like pointless data being flagged for garbage collection. Foster families, gangs, friends… their images were drifting away farther and farther, and in their wake only the feeling most prominent in her life remained: instability. Would the Relic even show this to Johnny the way it did with his own memories - a morning program while he is having his cereal? Or a brief recollection of that time she got strawberries for her birthday, when he smells the smoke of a Fields of Green strawberry-flavored cigarette from Biotechnica?

_Would he even... care to relive them?_

The adrenaline was starting to subsidize, and now she could think much more clearer. _Stupid!_ she chastised herself. All that effort to infiltrate and escape the hideout, and she still left empty-handed - all because the Relic had decided to work against her. _Some merc_ she was, scurrying away from a gig just because she couldn’t handle a bit of heat. She clenched her jaw, eyeing a puddle along the road. She let out a satisfied exhale as the car splashed into it.

She should not have left without the shard.

A train passed through the multicolored tube towards Vista del Rey, and with it V tried to send her thoughts.

"So, Goro... Where did you say you got this ride from?” she asked instead, breaking their comfortable silence.

“I did not. It is not important,” came his answer, calm and collected.

She tried to anchor herself within the rasp in his voice.

“Oh my, oh my…” V straightened in her chair, widening her eyes in fake outrage. “Did… did you steal the car?!”

Goro fleetingly took his eyes off the road to shoot her a disapproving look. He shook his head.

“I have no need for petty thievery anymore, just how I have no need for squatting in cockroach-infested apartments.”

“You mean to tell me Hanako had _any_ _Archer…_ in her garage?! I’m shocked she lent it to you!”

“I would not dream to request this of Hanako- _sama_ ,” he declared, as if the comparatively cheap brand could actually be present in the heiress’ arsenal. “Such favors are not appropriate of me to ask for.”

A moment of silence followed, and V watched him as he continued to drive undeterred.

“I borrowed it from a Kiji agent,” he said simply.

She frowned. Goro had mentioned in passing a few details about Arasaka and its factions within. There was Taka, Yorinobu’s faction that she distinctly remembered being described as _‘treacherous dogs’_. There was Hato, Michiko’s group which was seeking more American ideas and ideals. And then there was Kiji, which sought stability and the continuation of the mainline, with Hanako at its forefront.

She studied his appearance: Grizzled dark hair pulled into a knot. His leather jacket clinging to his shoulders. His usual white shirt, this time with its neckband buttoned up. Even if the jacket’s collar covered the Arasaka logo on his cyberware, and even if his overall choice of clothing did not mark him as one of their employees, it was clear that Hanako did not forget his late father’s bodyguard if he was this close to her faction again.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Neither did her brother forget.

“I’m sorry,” V murmured.

“What for?”

“I…” a puff of nervous laughter interrupted her, and she looked outside the window to try and mask the worry in her voice. “I shouldn’t have done this. After that stint we pulled with Hanako, Yorinobu must’ve doubled the price on your head to save face. I didn’t know who else to call and I was…”

“V.”

_Afraid._

The embarrassment she felt did not let her look at him.

Goro sighed. “Speak of tomorrow and the rats in the ceiling will laugh.”

She huffed confusedly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

That earned her a soft chuckle.

“It means that I am happy I was your first choice.”

He had a knack for opening or closing difficult subjects with a disarming honesty. His bluntness always took her by surprise, as it was of an entirely different nature than what she was used to. It wasn’t like Rafael, Annie, Moira or Miles - who had been shaped by their own foster families, assigned by the special services or the gangs that later adopted them all, where bluntness was followed by a wad of eddies slapped onto the table or iron placed under the jaw. It wasn’t like Vik's, who tried to skirt the issue and soften the blow as much as he could before dropping it on his patients sounding almost like he was exasperated with himself for doing this. It wasn’t like Jakie’s used to be, or Mama Welles’ or Misty’s - opened by enveloping you in a sweet cloud of heartfelt preamble.

No. Goro’s bluntness was as if he told her that the sky is blue, water is wet, or that the air in Night City has a taste to it. And it was the sort of honesty that would inexplicably calm her more than anything in the world.

She closed her eyes. A small smile was tugging at her lips.

_“Ol’ Saburo trained this dog well.”_

How she wanted to swat Johnny out of her ears sometimes.

“Speaking of Hanako, you got your implants back, I see,” V said, drowning out Silverhand’s barrage of hot takes.

Goro hummed. “The ripperdocs Hanako- _sama_ has at her disposal are preoccupied with Oda, and I would rather not have them worry about unnecessary procedures.”

“Oh so… all of that back there… you did without your implants?”

“You sound surprised.”

“I… suppose I shouldn’t be.”

A slight smirk grew on his lips. “Have I not shown the same amount of skill before? I told you that I earned my position. My competition was not easy.”

Indeed, he had never fallen short of impressive in any of the battles that she had been in with him. There was never a time when he appeared out of his element - even during Adam Smasher’s raid to retrieve Hanako from her kidnapping. She had found him in the same room, next to the shabby bed that he had made his, fighting off a swarm of Arasaka soldiers. A short trail of bodies had been built from the door towards the bowels of the apartment, as if they weren’t the ones that had the upper hand but were instead rushing eagerly towards slaughter. He was, at the time, an ex-Arasaka agent, so he knew that there were more troops than he had bullets, and yet his arms did not waver, his aim was straight, and eyes were burning with resolve. The only confession for his fear was his voice, telling her that she should have left him behind and that she would die there with him.

All in that same damn bluntness of his.

“I didn’t realize I was being observed.”

Goro’s sudden interruption of her reverie made her snap her eyes to him.

“I, well,” she began, trying to gather her words. “I had to figure out where you were in that corridor.”

“Mm.”

“Unless you mean to tell me that I shouldn’t… _observe_ you?” she said, trailing the words teasingly.

But Goro seemed unfazed, watching the road diligently. “You should do whatever is necessary for your success in a battle.”

“Mhm, that’s a half-answer if I’ve ever heard one. What’s your… _strategy_ then?”

She leaned in her chair, playfully hiding her mouth with her knuckles and looking up at him from beneath her lashes. He briefly glanced sideways at her with an unreadable expression, and pushed a second simper into his cheek, softly crinkling the skin around the thin line of cyberware that framed his cheekbones, before declaring:

“You fight well.”

She smiled and chuckled in her knuckles, which garnered her another glance. He had raised his eyebrow as if to feign ignorance, but the remnants of his smirk still fought to be seen.

“That being said, I do wonder why you were there,” Goro added, snuffing out a disgusted _‘ugh’_ from Johnny.

She sighed.

 _So we’d rather have this topic_.

“You and me both… It was for a gig. A fixer of mine from Watson sent me to this guy, who had another guy, which led to another guy. You know, usual boring merc stuff.”

He frowned. “And were you not briefed about this mission?”

“It’s… a long story.”

Goro hummed. “We have the time, do we not?”

“I am not so sure about that…” V responded in a low voice.

There was no pleasant time to be reminded by the quickly ticking clock that clicked and clacked gleefully towards the inevitable time of her death. Hellman’s words had not been reassuring. Hanako’s promise felt empty. Bleecker - _sorry, Mr. Hands_ \- had yet to find her a way in with the Voodoo Boys. Every single one of her leads felt like a variable, set to change the course of her life at any moment.

The only constant she had was Afterlife. There, the promise of her survival was dependent only on her and her abilities to make a name for herself. She had started with gigs that spoke to her, a sort of ideal that she could really get behind. She eagerly accepted Regina’s proposal to find cyberpsychos, with the intention to understand what caused it and to help them overcome this - that gig was a no-brainer for her. Breaking into gangs’ hideouts to free some distraught person’s kidnapped partner - clear, concise, the details were all there and she knew what she was getting into. Installing malware in gangs’ network - bringing them down was never easier now. She intercepted NCPD scans. Took jobs from friends, friends of friends, neighbors of friends of friends. She stole from gangs, searched for information. Got her hands dirty, planted dirt on other people’s hands.

And then the gigs got sparse.

Regina had questionable details. Wakako had shoddy contracts that she declined before even asking her mercs. _Padre_ had whispers. _El Capitán_ , Dakota, Dino - all were out of jobs to give.

Or at least not to her. Other mercs demanded business too.

So she started taking riskier gambles. The whispers, the shoddy contracts, the questionable details started to sound appealing - and who would _not_ be impressed with her work when she had so little to go off by? A broken lead that seemingly took her nowhere, yet she still managed to find the missing military-grade implant, got a few mouths talking on the Valentino's turf. Scouring three different hideouts for one rusty-looking Fuyutsuki datashard - eyes followed her from every other corner of Jig-Jig Street.

Her name was spreading through the city faster than the R.A.B.I.D.S. virus reached corpo datafortresses in the fall of the first Net.

All because she was scared of dying. Nothing more, nothing less. The only thing she could truly do by herself and through her own sheer willpower was making a name for herself, get a cocktail named after her in Afterlife, and live in the memory of people that never truly knew her and that she had no _fuckin’_ desire to meet.

“What is on your mind?” Goro’s voice snapped her back to reality once again.

And she had no clue what to tell him.

V pinched the bridge of her nose, just below the line of her cyberware.

“I was briefed, in a sense. The guy that approached Regina, my fixer, had his own small group of mercs that he operated with. Sorry, _professional_ ,” she said, making air quotes with her fingers, “mercs. His choomba, a gonk named Rye Williams, gave me all the info. They wanted a data shard that they had tracked down from one outpost to another until they had finally reached this location. 6th Street. They said it looked way larger than it actually was. Only a handful of brawlers should have been there when I was supposed to arrive. Yes, I asked them why they didn’t go in themselves - apparently they would have attracted too much attention since this group broke off from the 6th Street some time ago. _Sure_ , I said. Didn’t sound more complicated than what I had done ‘till now.”

“But they were not these… 6th Street.”

“No,” she said with a deep sigh. “No, they weren’t. And I was way underprepared for this. Not to mention that jackass Relic I have, messing up with my brain.”

Goro frowned. “Why did you go through with this mission if you saw that your information was completely wrong?”

She eyed the road ahead. The rain had stopped, but the asphalt was still scintillating with neon lights.

“V?”

“I don’t refuse a contract.”

“You should. There is no honor to be found at either end of a deceitful barrel.”

“Maybe he wasn’t deceitful,” V sulkily mumbled, low enough that Goro didn’t catch it.

“Where is this Rye Williams?” he asked, veering to the right with a bit more speed than he should have. “You should not leave a contract unfinished.”

“Hm? I don’t have the datashard, I never found it,” she argued. “I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

“That is not what I meant.”

She shook her head.

Though she couldn’t claim that his impulsivity wasn’t charming.

“Goro… it’s not worth it. Really, Regina and I will deal with it. I won’t step over my fixer.”

“Someone that has tracked this shard down so closely would know who and what is guarding it. The missing information was not a mistake. He sent you there to die.”

She let out a deep exhale and clenched her teeth. Logic was the last thing she needed now, and this thought had been tucked away at the back of her mind.

“I know.”

“You should repay such generosity.”

“No, I… I’ll get my fixer in trouble,” she reiterated. “This wasn’t the client, only his contact. It’s stupid, I know, but there is a formality to the process, and I don’t want to ruin my reputation.”

“Your reputation would mean nothing had his plan succeeded.”

“I appreciate the concern… but this is my code that I need to abide by.”

It was time for Goro to clench his jaw. But whatever protest he was brewing, he let out in one smoky “As you wish.”

“Say… What do you know about Afterlife?”

_What a poor attempt to change the subject._

“Only what I have told you before. It’s a club, and it’s the main dwelling of the _‘Queen of Fixers’_. I have not spent much time there after I was rudely dismissed by her,” he recounted, reaching out to the radio and turning down the music slightly.

“Ah, so you haven’t seen much of what Afterlife has to offer?”

“I was there with a purpose. In my line of work there is little free time to be had, and now it has been more so.”

By now, the city landscape had changed from the clean scenery of the Corpo Plaza into the muck of the Little China district in Watson.

He cautiously looked at her sideways.

“And I am not the type to seek what these places _have to offer_ , be it Afterlife or… Jig-Jig.”

V laughed. “That’s not what I meant! It is a bar, therefore... “ she paused, stretching the word as if there was a big reveal, “they sell alcohol. But what's interesting about this is that you can get a cocktail on the menu named after you.”

 _“Tell him about the Johnny Silverhand,”_ Johnny intervened and he almost sounded _giddy_. _“That’ll rile him up.”_

“You can get this if you become _someone_ in this city,” she continued undeterred. “For me I’m thinking… two-parts tequila, half a part of bitters, three-quarters lemon juice and three-quarters honey. Specifically Centzon Totochtin for tequila, no preference for the bitters. But… I’m not sure yet. It doesn’t sound that interesting.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Rude,” she feigned offense. “You come up with something better.”

“It does not sound like _you_ ,” Goro clarified.

His bluntness never ceased to surprise her, and this time was no exception. There were not many things that could make her blush, yet she could feel her cheeks flush.

_Oh._

She shuffled in her seat to regain her composure and continue the discussion.

“What would you want yours to be?”

He mused for a moment, tapping the steering wheel while waiting at a traffic light.

“One part 18-year aged Japanese whisky, two parts fizzy water... and a lemon peel for garnish.”

“Huh, that sounds familiar.”

Goro hummed. “It is a highball. It’s good for after work.”

V laughed. “The cocktail that you’d have named after _you_ is characterized by being good _after work_?”

He shrugged. “That is when I drink.”

“Okay, alright,” she concluded, while arranging herself more comfortably in her chair. “What kind of whisky? That sounds like you have something specific in mind.”

“I doubt you can find it here. I… have tried.”

“Describe it to me.”

At the start of their partnership he had been less accommodating of her inquisitive, brazen or borderline teasing remarks. Normally at this point she could have expected a deep sigh and an exasperated check of his GPS. They were close to reaching her megabuilding, and he could have easily pretended he did not hear her until they arrived at their destination.

Instead, he indulged her:

“It’s a smooth taste, a bit spicy, slightly bitter and slightly sweet,” he recalled. “For the scent I remember roasted nuts, cherry and smoked Mizunara. It’s made in the Mishima district of Osaka’s prefecture.”

“Mmm, smooth and smoky?” she said with a suggestive grin. “Sounds about right.”

And he caught it.

There was a subtle, blazing look in those icy eyes, that dissipated almost as quickly as it had appeared.

The megabuilding loomed over the still-busy roundabout, and a thin line of smoke trailed towards them from a street food kiosk. Goro slowed down and began looking for an empty space where he could park temporarily.

She took this time to examine him once more. Strong hands gripped the steering wheel. From underneath the RealSkin finish of his cyberware, matte dark metal was peeking in precise patterns over his fingers and knuckles. The hardware collar piped in crimson gave him a severe look, almost continuing his beard along the jawline. His skin was wrinkled with lines that suggested he had had far more burdens in his life than moments to cherish and laugh about.

And yet, the two of them could have not been more different. His cyberware was of high-caliber, fitting for an ex-soldier, marked proudly with the Arasaka logo. The silvery biosilk threads in his white shirt shimmered under the fluorescent lights. Even his choice of music was intangible to her ears, and he had switched the radio station to jazz as soon as he could.

But the most glaring difference of all was his undying devotion with which he clung to his role and ideals, putting it before his personal freedom. Showing utmost security and balance in both his resolution and his outlook on life.

Nothing short of _stability_.

And _oh_ , how much she craved it.

“Hey, Goro…” V said, and he turned to face her. “Do you want to hang out for a while longer?”


	6. Preventing Recursive Locks

Goro looked up towards the megabuilding’s entrance. The angles in his features were bathed in magenta, cyan and bright white lights from large signs, and in the urban glow V could finally see the full extent of their earlier skirmish. The silver streak in his hair was marbled with dried blood; a faint smear extended from his nose towards his right ear along his cyberware, likely smudged with the back of his hand during the battle. Splatters dotted his jacket’s shoulder, almost disappearing into the dark leather. A bullet had grazed it, leaving a shallow trail behind.

He turned to face her.

“I could stay for a couple more hours.”

V grinned. “Nova. I know you don’t like megabuildings - or at least not the lower levels. But you’ll see, it’s not as bad as your old place.”

Goro hummed. “Are these buildings not made after the same blueprint?”

She remembered the New Harbor Mallplex, which became the first arcology of this type after the Fourth Corporate War. He was, indeed, right, and she did not have many reassuring words for him in that regard. He pulled the handbrake, turned off the engine, and they began to exit the car.

“We’ll go to the 50th floor, slightly lower than the floors with penthouses,” V said as she closed the door behind her. “That area is well-maintained and has nicer benches.”

He nodded. “That sounds good to me. Lead the way.”

“Ah, one more thing. Should we get some takeaway?”

If he had managed to snuff a grimace before as the realization that he would step into a Watson megabuilding settled in, he did not manage the feat a second time. V forced herself to swallow the laughter.

“What choices do we have?” he groused.

“Pancakes from Tom’s Diner?” V offered, shrugging.

“At this hour?”

She laughed. “You’d be surprised how many people would be craving breakfast now. You can also have a look at the stalls. The best ones are on the 18th floor, have a look around there and when you’re done stand by the elevator and I’ll come pick you up.”

His expression turned from upset to amused, with a smirk that said _‘I don’t need to be picked up.’_

She rolled her eyes, amused, and approached the rear-view mirrors of the parked Hella. A few splatters of dried blood covered her forehead and down her nose. She licked her thumb and began to rub them off.

“Very well. I shall go and see if I can find something that is not plastic,” he concluded, proceeding towards the stairs.

“Goro, be nice please!” V shot up and shouted at him. “I live here!”

Without turning, he raised his arm in acknowledgement. Rolling her eyes again, she returned to the mirror for one last check. She managed to spot a few dried beads along the matte black cyberware over her left cheek. Surprisingly none on her multiple facial piercings. She ran her fingers through her hair a couple of times, just to be able to tell herself she tried, and tossed it over to one side. Her eyes looked surprisingly energized, and she thanked Vik again for giving her the new Kiroshis. She would have been in pain by now had she still had to wear contact lenses to replicate the expensive model: black sclerae, with an all-white targeting module as her irises and pupils. She almost forgot she used to have hazel eyes.

She quickly dusted off her jacket and deemed it as enough preening; it _was_ Watson after all, a bit of caked blood on clothes wasn’t that unusual. At least some effort was put into making sure there weren’t any drips down her cheeks.

The trip to Tom’s Diner was uneventful, as expected. Groups lined the street, chatting or drunkenly dancing to some shop’s loud music. It was unchanged from the day before, the week before all the way back to months and months ago, and it would remain unchanged from now on.

With, or without her to walk these streets.

She shoved her hands into her pants’ pockets instinctively, as an attempt to clear her thoughts.

The door towards the Diner was pushed, and her presence was announced with a cheery _ding_.

The small restaurant itself was busy. The seats were all taken by people in various stages of inebriation and various levels of undress. The electric violet synweave jacket of a woman chatting in the other doorway caught her eye. Still-sizzling hot dogs were on each table, and the diner was filled with that distinct scent of All Foods synthetic meat - a very aggressive beef aroma that was present in everything they released to the market, from Burrito XXL to the Meat Delight tubs. Lisa, one of the girls that usually worked the night shift, was filling a paper cone with fresh chunky fries. She was swamped with orders, and V knew that Lisa was _dying_ that she couldn’t gossip with the regulars. Emily, the manager, was working the till, rhythmically tapping her long painted nails on the table along with the music.

“Menu of pancakes for two, please. To go,” V said as she approached the till.

“That’ll be twenty eurodollars, coming in…” Emily trailed, looking back towards the kitchen, “...six minutes.”

“Mm, hard day today?” Parag joked as he eyed his order of fries being packed from his spot in the waiting area. “You weren’t in the Tyger Claws attack from earlier, were you? NCPD is still lookin’ for that gonk that managed to escape.”

V blanked him for a moment, then mechanically dusted her jacket’s front - he must’ve picked on the blood still caked on her clothes. He always had a good eye for details. She transferred the money to Emily, who in turn winked at her to let her know the transfer had been completed.

“Nah, just a regular ol’ night… ‘Guess I’m just really hungry,” V said, making way for the next customer.

Parag nodded absent-mindedly as if he hadn’t heard a single word that escaped her mouth. He patted her on her shoulder and shot towards the other side of the counter, just as Lisa was preparing to call out a new name. V took his place and leaned on her forearms.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The mixture of scents was as familiar as it could be for the past months in Night City. Oftentimes, after a gig, Jackie would get hungry and would drag them both across the city either to Tom’s Diner or back at El Coyote Cojo in Heywood. It was not unusual either to be woken up by Tom or Mama Welles in the middle of the night as they had dozed off on one of the tables, with a drink in one hand and a half-eaten burger or burrito in the other.

The Widow Maker had been left in Goro’s borrowed Hella, but her pistol hung heavy in its holster around her waist. A Tsunami Nue, glossy black on the bottom half, and sprayed silver on top - she had done so on a similar night, slightly messily and with only one coat that she had to later fix, meant to offset Jackie’s white-and-gold pair of pistols which he had lovingly named _La Chingona Dorada_. He had insisted she get a pair as well, but she had always preferred to have her left hand available for takedowns, and now that she had her mantis blade implants done it was even more apparent that this choice was the right one.

She opened her eyes and sighed. The memory tugged at her heart as sharply as all the other shared recollections at the memorial did. To busy herself, she opened the Arch’s control panel and input the Megabuilding H10’s parking coordinates.

What would have Jackie said had he known their usual ritual was now shared with Goro - _a corporate agent?_

_“The fuck you think you’re doing?”_

Jackie sure sounded an awful lot like Johnny.

The air behind the counter was cut by the usual screen tearing she saw before he made his appearance.

 _“Getting pancakes,”_ V responded, still watching the Arch move for a few more blocks, just to make sure it was indeed coming.

Johnny wasn’t happy with the answer - he slammed his fist into the counter.

_“You know damn well that’s not what I’m talking about!”_

_“Spell it out for me, will you? I have a whirring noise at the back of my head right now, and I can’t seem to concentrate.”_

He took a deep breath. _“All I asked you to do, was to call someone to fuck some scavs up and get you out of that den,”_ he gritted his teeth. _“What I didn’t expect you to do was try and fuck him.”_

She ignored him, watching Lisa hand out a new cone of fries and a tray of hot dogs.

_“What do you even think you two have in common, huh?! Both of you stole precious ‘saka assets?! Do you think that’s gonna get him har-”_

_“Johnny!”_ she shouted in her mind.

_“Newsflash: this will never work. These two worlds you’re in are not meant to collide. You’ve heard him yourself, the only thing he cares about is the corporation.”_

_“Why does everything have to fucking boil down to fucking and how bad corps are with you?!”_

_“Cut the crap, I’m in your fucking head, V! Do you think I don’t see this shit?! Trust me, I wish you had an ICE to block me out of those fucking thoughts, but you don’t! You’re gonna get your heart broken, misfire a bullet thinkin’ about this and you’ll flatline by some gonk’s third-rate gun.”_

_“Right, I’m done!”_ V concluded angrily, feeling the blood rushing through her veins. She proceeded rustling through her pockets for the omega blockers.

_Where are those fucking pills!_

_“Sure, run the fuck away when you don’t like what you’re hearing! It won’t make it any less true.”_

A pill was downed.

The figure disappeared, the voice was snuffed.

Her heart was still beating fast by the time Emily brought her the order: six steaming pancakes and two cans of Cirrus Cola. V thanked her and left the diner.

Johnny was right.

 _Of course he was right_ , which made it that much harder to hear. Goro's loyalty to Arasaka, his view that the corporations are the future and the only way to go forward, his view on the life she lived, hell, even his music taste…

It hurt. But it was fine, he did not have to return any of her feelings. She valued his friendship just as much, and if it meant that the love she had for him was to remain unrequited just to have him near for the time being, then so be it.

And there wasn’t much time left to begin with.

V had been on autopilot when she reached the elevator. Gillean Jordan of News 54 was giving the summary of what she could only assume was the Tyger Claws attack that Parag mentioned earlier. She forced herself to concentrate on the words as she pressed the button for floor 18. Something-something NCPD had it under control - she didn’t have to pay attention to guess that this would have been the conclusion. So she focused on Gillean’s hot pink and gold dress instead, an ostentatious mixture of colors that somehow worked for both media presences and streetwear, with a blonde mullet to complete the look.

 _Ding_.

The floor was reached.

Goro was nowhere near the elevator.

She proceeded towards the food stalls. Residents were out and about, chatting fervently in groups of various sizes. The conversations were peppered with the occasional _pop_ and _fizz_ sounds of opening a new can of drinks. Trash piled in two locations, with colorful plastic and paper wrappings, Nicola cans, and Abydos and Broseph beer bottles. The scents of various cuisines melded and filled the air with a delicious aroma.

She didn’t have to look too far for the ex-bodyguard, as she found him maintaining a menacing stance in front of one unlucky stall. Through the general noise of the enclosed market, she could barely make out any words that he was hurling at the vendor, but by the look in the poor man’s eyes she could tell that he was questioned heavily by Goro.

Leaning on a nearby pylon, she crossed her arms and waited for him to be done. His broad shoulders were straight as ever, only slumping slightly when - _she assumed_ \- the vendor gave him an answer he wished he did not hear. A few hairs had broken from the tight bun and were sticking out rebelliously.

She wondered if he realized how accidentally funny he was sometimes.

Goro looked around in annoyance, and caught a glimpse of her. She was suddenly aware that she had been smiling the whole time, as he frowned at her as if to say _‘stop mocking me’_. She winked at him, which softened his features and returned his attention to the vendor. During this exchange, he had moved enough on his feet for her to see what had caught his interest from the multitude of dishes, and the menu of the Japanese-focused stall that he had stopped in front of. Fresh - or as fresh as they could be - takoyaki. Steaming-hot.

“Mhm,” she hummed, as her eyes had drifted to a different subject.

After a few more minutes, he finally left the spot with, surprisingly, a plastic bag heavy with food. Though judging by his expression he wasn’t in the least bit pleased with his choice.

“You know a great deal about cooking,” V admitted, joining him in the walk back towards the elevator. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone argue with a street food vendor about how they prepare their food.”

He seemed taken aback. “We all should know, it is an essential skill to have. No one should have to rely on pre-packaged food or street food cooked with building scraps.”

“Goro, sometimes I wonder who roasts harder in Night City, the food vendors or you,” she joked.

But as she finished her sentence she looked around to see if anyone was shooting daggers at them.

“As for cooking…” she continued, musing. “Possibly. Kitchens in the old sense aren’t common around here, especially not in places like this. Maybe Hanako or some higher corpo execs would have one. For the rest of us, apartments have vending machines that we replenish every month. I gather that it’s different in Japan?”

Goro nodded. “Japan was not affected by the Food Crash in 2002, and this allowed our kitchens to continue being useful. Fresh ingredients are still easy to find for everyone.”

“Ahh... fresh food… I remember going to Skyward with my first gig pay after I started working with Jackie. It’s a high-end restaurant on Republic Way in Downtown, serves all sorts of fusions.”

They entered the elevator, V pressed the button for floor 50 and leaned onto the screens on the wall. He resumed his usual rigid stance, which only made her feel like she had her own bodyguard to explore her megabuilding with.

“We had a fat stack of eddies,” she continued, “that the contact didn’t want to pay directly into our accounts. Naturally, we called Misty, Jackie’s girlfriend, told her to put on her nicest threads and we headed there. The tomatoes were _to die for_. Delicious, fragrant and _so_ juicy.” 

Her stomach growled.

Goro shook his head. “This is unacceptable, to live only knowing the taste of synthetic food. The apartment that Hanako _-sama_ has given me has a kitchen, when all of this is over you will learn of truly good food.”

“Is that a date, Goro?” She smiled coyly. Before he had a chance to react, she added: “I’ll hold you to that. You’ve built up some high expectations now, you know.”

He smirked. “There is no need to doubt my abilities.”

They travelled in comfortable silence for the first chunk of floors.

“So how did you learn all this?” V finally broke the silence. “Cooking for yourself, cooking for Saburo…?”

He looked outside the window, towards the inner patio, then back at her. “My father… spent most of his time in the kitchen. I learnt by helping him, though I was not meant to master the art.”

“You weren’t? Did they have a career already planned out for you?”

“They had _this_ career planned for my older brother, but I am a quick learner.”

“Oh, you have a brother?” she asked, perking up her head.

He nodded. “Yes. Four of them, each with a life plan prepared for us. I was the only one to go against it.”

A mellow _ding_ signaled the end of their journey, and they stepped out of the elevator.

“Do you ever wonder what it could have been like if that Arasaka transporter didn’t show up that day?”

Goro ruminated for a moment. “No. It helps no one to think about what things could have been as they can never be changed. I can only worry about the present and the future.”

The floor was not quite as empty as she had hoped for. Even two hours past midnight, groups had congregated outside their apartments, drinking, laughing, and merrily dancing to the radios they had brought out in the sitting areas. The gym was closed, and the boxing ring was transformed into a makeshift dancing area. The benches were almost all taken, but she knew of one tucked away around a corner, near the apartment of Gabe, an elderly netrunner who was not very keen on having any noise right outside his door no matter what he was doing.

The residents often joked that he must have installed proximity sensors on the bench and gotten custom implants to feed the pings from it directly into his brain, otherwise there was no way he’d hear anyone from cyberspace. Still, he was rather fond of V, as she would only visit to sit in silence and reflect on her day under the relatively open sky. And she was certain Gabe wouldn’t have any issue with the stoic man she had brought over to visit.

“So, this is where you live,” Goro rasped, slowly taking in the minimalistic décor of the outside hallway.

“Oh no, my apartment is way lower. The higher you go, the more luxurious the apartments become.”

As they placed their plastic bags on the bench, she noticed the trash pile that throned proudly in the corner of the area. A large beer stain circled the small mountain of boxes, bottles and half-eaten meals.

“Well, as luxurious as they can get. It’s usually nice and quiet at this hour.”

As if on cue, one of the groups they had passed on their way to the bench let out a rumble of laughter. V winced.

_Preem._

“Usually,” she added, on top of an encore from the group. “Sorry, I know how much you hate this side of Night City. This was… the first place I could afford on my own, coming back here from Atlanta. It got me out of sleeping on the couches in El Coyote Cojo, Misty’s shop, Vik’s or other friends who you haven’t met. I guess I could get something better but it’s… more of a symbol, you know? And depending all my life on foster parents...”

She grimaced. It was unlike her to show this much weakness, and she certainly did not want Goro to look at her with pity.

But there was none in his eyes.

“A symbol of self reliance.”

V gave him a small smile. “Yeah.”

He dropped his gaze to the floor for a moment, before raising it towards her again.

“I apologize. My experiences with Night City are my own. I have insulted your achievements, and that was not my intention.”

She looked at him perplexed, and not knowing what to say, she tried for an awkward joke: “So no talk about how different we are when we bloody our hands?”

He gave her a half-smile. “Give it time. We have just arrived here… Even if I may not always agree with your methods, the results are worthy of respect.”

“I… well… apology accepted,” she spluttered. “Does that... mean you’ll have no issues with the beer stench?”

Goro grunted a _‘mmm’_ and proceeded to make himself comfortable on the bench. The effort was noted nonetheless, and she sat herself next to him.

They dug into the food with varying levels of excitement. She found the takoyaki great as usual, but Goro went into great detail of all the steps necessary to properly cook them. To someone who had never once even stepped inside a kitchen, his recollection felt as unattainable as actually being able to afford the fresh ingredients required for the dish on the regular. His eyes would light up any time he talked about cooking, and there was a particular gentleness and pride to his words that would not usually come through in any other topic they discussed. As expected, he loathed the portion he had bought; he forced himself to finish the delicious synth-octopus ball he had started, and was content to just watch her finish her meal. The pancakes were just slightly more of a hit with him.

The next hour was filled with discussions, laughter, and laughter at the random interjections they heard from the nearby groups that sometimes almost seemed in context. Their jackets had been discarded on the back of the bench as they had gotten more comfortable. She told him of interesting gigs, and he told her of interesting locations his job had taken him. He told her of encounters in the districts of Night City, and she told him how he almost ended up on a wrong street. There was a visible difference in how he was behaving now and back during their reconnaissance at the Arasaka warehouse, which was to be expected. Hanako was on their side, he had almost been completely welcomed back within the ranks, and there seemed to be light at the end of his tunnel. His guard was lowered, he smiled more, he was _warmer_.

V had learnt from a young age that _safety_ was a feeling that comes from within and only she could provide it, but being next to him felt like there was no need to be tense anymore, ready to jump in attack at any small change in attitude. His eyes, piercing, had been terrifying the first time she had seen them: red, scintillating as he scanned for any vermin hiding in Yorinobu’s pad at Konpeki Plaza. They had been red again as he found her in the rubble at the dumping ground outside Night City, ready to hand her almost-lifeless body to the lying Arasaka heir. They were icy-blue at Tom’s Diner, cold and bitter as he proposed they worked together.

How much they could have changed, even as the color persisted. Crinkled, smiling, bright and content.

How she hoped she was not delusional and seeing things where there were none.

“Do you ever wonder if there could have been a different path for you?”

V hummed. “Not as a merc you mean?”

“Was the aversion for corporations always there?”

She laughed - _what an excellent joke._ “Oh, Goro… I think we both know no corp would have hired me even if my view on them was different.”

But he was as serious as he could be.

“How so?”

She huffed and shrugged.

“I don’t take orders well and all my knowledge in fighting was learnt in the streets, I would have made a terrible soldier. I have gaps in my education - a sad and angry foster kid doesn’t mix well with school, or at least not this one. I would’ve made a terrible… whatever division there is for office work. Not to mention that I look terrible in a suit. You should have seen me when we went to Konpeki, I thought I was going to blow our cover up.”

They had moved from the bench towards the ledge, leaning on the railing with a can of Cirrus Cola in one hand, and looking down at the central patio below. Although the crowd had steadily dwindled in numbers, there were still a few more people hanging around.

Goro shook his head. “You undersell yourself.”

“Really?” she asked, taking a sip. “I thought I oversold myself. It takes a lot of effort to look that bad in a suit that expensive.”

“Give yourself more credit,” he insisted. “You may not have the same training of a soldier, but you fight with your head. I was there when you went against Arasaka troops and I know their discipline - the fact that we made it out alive means more than you may think. You have taken the life I was desperate to leave behind and within which I saw no future, and you made it into something worth being proud of.”

V looked at him unable to form a sentence. Her cheeks started to warm, and she felt a tightness in her skin.

“Goro… stop it… you’re making me blush,” she finally managed to blurt out in a low voice, rotating the can of coke between her palms.

“It is true,” he said in that damned blunt tone of his, though gentler than what she was used to.

“I didn’t think you’d... See me like this. When did I overcome the _‘petty thief’_ title?”

He gave her a soft smile. “Coming… back to help me when it would have been better and easier to run away, after Hanako _-sama_ knew the truth… showed me that there is honor in your actions.”

She turned her gaze towards the other groups in the hallway and took a sip, in an attempt to stop another flush from blooming on her cheeks.

“Do you really believe Hanako can help me?” she asked, voice dropping to barely more than a whisper. “You heard what Hellman said, I’m basically done for.”

“Only Arasaka may compete with Arasaka, I have no doubt that Hanako- _sama_ will find a solution.”

His tone was clear, firm and persuasive, and how much she wished she could let herself be convinced by him.

“I just… feel tired. I feel like my time would be better spent just… up and leaving all of this behind. The apartment, the city, everything, and just… riding alone in the Badlands until the end of my days.”

“V…”

She let out a small, pathetic laugh. “I’ll help you, alright? We had a deal back at Tom’s Diner. We’ve worked well together so far, I won’t leave you when you’re so close to avenging Saburo.”

“Give Hanako- _sama_ a chance. Such a dedication to Arasaka would not go unnoticed. The Relic will be removed, and you will be able to live your life as you wish to.”

“What about you, Goro? What will you do once we’ll get Yorinobu?”

It was his moment to be left puzzled, mirroring her movements and silently playing with the can in his hands.

“You have left the corpo life behind before,” she pushed.

“Not willingly.”

“Was it that bad?”

“Not… all of it.”

Her lips curled into an encouraging beam. “You said before that you wanted to live the nomad life. What better moment than after you finish your mission?”

He sighed. “I do not have the same liberty that you do, V.”

“Why not? Your duty was to Saburo, right? If we avenge him, you’re free of your obligations from the corporation.”

“It is not that simple,” he reiterated. “My duty remains to protect the head of the Arasaka family.”

“Who, right now, is Yorinobu.”

“Not for long. Hanako- _sama_ is the rightful heir.”

“And Hanako has Oda. You really think he’ll just step aside and let you take his job?”

His head hung low and his shoulders shook with an earnest chuckle. He sighed deeply and turned to face her again.

“Think about it,” she pleaded. “By then you would have proved your loyalty tenfold. What do _you_ want the most?”

He studied her, as if to assess if there was any use in arguing further. She saw his eyes glaze over hers slowly, and slow was the transition from amusement to an emotion she could not quite place.

“The weight of duty is heavier than the wants of the heart,” he concluded, holding her gaze.

His tone was thick and smoky, in a low voice that felt both as smooth as butter and as intense as a roaring fire. The look in his eyes was different, _sharp_ , a new color to shade his irises. Without realizing, they had moved closed during their dialogue, and she was now painfully aware of their brushing elbows.

She swallowed. Had Johnny still been there, he would have been screaming at her to stop. But, as such, she could only act on her instinct, and her instinct told her to move closer.

“And if… your duty… was fulfilled?”

She waited for him to turn around and away from her, fully understanding that this was a hopeless gamble. Apart from their elbows, they did not touch. She was now close enough to feel his skin’s warmth, to breath in his breath, his spiced cologne and deliriously musky scent. To feel his heavy gaze.

Icy-blue, scorching and scathing.

For a split second, his eyes dropped lower to her lips and back up to her own.

“Then…” Goro whispered.

_Hot, husky and smoky._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and sorry to everyone who was expecting a final chapter now 😭 The ending has been pushed back again, just because I wanted to not rush through any of the discussions, events and _ahem_ future scenes. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and that you will tune in for the final installment! ❤


	7. Call Me Valerie

There was a moment of pause where neither dared to speak. Goro’s words trailed and dissipated in the air between them like tendrils of smoke. A soft and filmy vapor that misted out the surrounding concrete of the megabuilding.

_Then._

He was watching intently with an impassible expression, the neon light above making it seem that much more intense than usual. His irises were a thin rim around the dark pupils. Two inky pools, calm, consuming… dilated.

Mouth barely agape.

V slowly closed the short distance between them. Their noses brushed against each other as she tilted her head. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, unsure if they should watch his surprise or if they should let her lose herself in the blind senses. His chapped lips and prickly mustache grazed at her skin enticingly, as she breathed a single chaste kiss.

She moved back, hesitant to entertain any other touch. And wavering she was when she opened her eyes again, readying herself to watch the consequences of a mistake unfold before her.

Goro was lazily opening his eyes as well, hazily gliding his gaze up towards hers.

She could feel her heartbeat drumming fast, piercing through her stuttering breath.

Their lips met again. Faster. Crashing. More sure of herself. The cans of Cirrus Cola were left on the hallway concrete railing. In a flurry she flung her arms around his shoulders, and his coiled around her waist. Their lips parted in perfect symmetry as if governed by the same singular desire, their bodies answering their own unspoken question simultaneously.

Their tongues met.

Two tides curling over each other.

His chest stammered against her own, a brief faltering breath that stole a low moan from her. She tasted the still-lingering sweet cola on his tongue, thirstily drinking in his famished kiss. Clashing. Rolling. Gliding and sucking on one another, grazing flesh upon teeth.

“V…”

Goro’s rasp was hot and intoxicating.

She wanted him closer.

Fall into each other.

Leave everything behind.

In the wake of the malfunctioning relic having bled its irreal in fraying patterns into the real, a small fear bubbled at the back of her mind. She didn’t want to open her eyes again and find them still sipping on their drinks over the concrete ledge.

_Make it real._

She bit his lower lip, and his beard grazed at her chin.

“Call me Valerie.”

Their lips reunited, with the force and desperation of a century’s lonely departure.

His back was warm in the cool nighttide wind. Her fingers began to explore at the taut muscles underneath his shirt, at the nape of his neck just above his cyberware, slipping one hand’s nails through the tight topknot and the other under his collar.

The effect washed over her quickly, with his thigh parting her legs. She could feel the outline of his arousal pressing against her, leaving her breathless. Fuzzy, hazy, delirious - V let herself lean and be guided by his hands at the small of her back, trailing a long lick on the underside of his tongue. She snaked her hands over his body, opening the buttons of his shirt, seeking muscles, slick skin and rising chest. He teasingly pushed the hem of her top upwards; the cool air feeling brisk over her incensed skin.

 _More_. _More. More..._

One hand left her back. Before the sudden abandonment could register to her, he cupped her cheek, trailing along her jawline, and laced his fingers through her hair. The other… he slipped it under her top.

She was alight.

Fingers along her ribs, along her spine… Pressing and barely brushing touches altogether against prickled skin. Going higher… and higher… cutting her breath with each movement.

 _Higher_ , she pleaded, moaning in his mouth.

“No… we mustn’t.”

The second that the words rolled off Goro’s tongue, V froze completely. Thoughts clamored in her mind, yet none rose above the uproar.

_It is wrong. He didn’t want to. You pushed too much too quickly._

“Not here.”

_Ah._

The thoughts settled and she could see him clearly. His gaze was pinned somewhere behind her, and before she could turn she heard what had probably caught his attention: laughter, whistles, and a bottle rolling on the floor on the other side of the building’s U-shape. His palms were still diligently holding their positions, and his thumb idly brushed the skin right under her bra band.

The clasp was all too restrictive, and _so close_ for him to reach.

She laughed coyly.

“Mmm not the worst place I’ve been in,” she said, kissing his jaw just above the metal implant.

He turned to her swiftly, which made them lock eyes.

“Not with me.”

Said with such a disarmingly decisive seriousness.

_In that damn bluntness of his._

“I want to do this right,” he continued, softer this time when he saw that she was left with no reply. “If it is to happen, that is…”

She blinked quickly.

This was not how events usually went down.

“Not-” she cleared her throat “- not a fan of the concrete bench? Or is it the caked blood from earlier?”

He snorted and raised an eyebrow towards the space behind her. Compelled, she turned. A group of drunk residents were watching them keenly.

“I am not a… fan of spectators either,” Goro said, and an impatient whistle from the group punctuated his statement.

 _Ah, right._ They were still outside after all. A detail that kept on slipping out of her mind.

“Well…” V purred. “I suppose I have a solution to that. My apartment is a few floors down, if that is more to your taste.”

The flash of a smirk was all that she saw before a new kiss crashed upon her lips, his palm now cradling the nape of her neck. His other slid from underneath her t-shirt and let the hem glide over her back. An involuntary whimper escaped her at the sudden loss of warmth.

“Lead the way, _Valerie_ ,” he whispered over her lips, and her body all but begged her to guide them to the bench.

They began to gather the empty takeaway boxes and the drinks, all neatly compacted into one plastic bag. Other than a ring around where her Cola can had been - placed on the ledge with slightly more carelessness than she had intended -, there were no signs left behind of their presence. The group across lost interest in them once they realized the show was over, and were now back to their usual activities. As she was putting on her jacket, V did a double-take on the door they were stationed in front of.

They were awfully close to Jessica’s apartment: a less infamous netrunner than Gabe, yet just as particular about her work and sleeping schedule. From V’s experience, she’d wait and wait for hours for the noise to stop, before erupting in the worst scold of your life since your mom caught you sneaking out of the house at midnight. Out of all the people on the netrunners’ floors, they had to pick her apartment.

One of their bottles rolled on the floor again, stopping into a wall with a loud _clink_.

May their God have mercy on them, because Jessica sure won’t.

Served them right for sticking their noses where they didn’t belong.

She turned to Goro, questioning _‘Ready?’_ with her raised eyebrows. His shirt was buttoned-up again, any creases neated out, and his coat was folded over his right arm which he solemnly held in front of him. The few loose hairs that had come undone were tucked behind his ears, and his silver streaks caught a golden light as he nodded towards her.

The blood splatters dried into the materials and hair almost didn’t even register. She absent-mindedly patted her shoulder, as if to flick any potential blood stains.

_Whatever, this is why I wear black._

The walk towards the elevator had never felt longer than now. Too many pillars, too many turns and twists, too many doors that looked exactly the same and way too many steps to pass them. The tall ads shimmered with changing colors at the corner of her eye, serving as the only indicator of the passing time.

And the distance between her and Goro never felt more agonizing.

The elevator was reached. Three talkative residents were already waiting for it.

 _Preem_.

There goes the chance for stealing any other touch.

They flanked the group, patiently impatient. One of them had an iridescent scintillating plastic jacket that caught V’s eye, changing colors as the woman bobbed left and right on her feet. The pink choppy hair complemented the purple shift in the stiff material. The other two, a woman and a man in their mid-twenties were facing each other as they merrily chattered. She tried to concentrate on any of their features, before throwing a fugitive look towards Goro.

Proper, proud shoulders, hands clasped onto one another in front of him, sharp look pointed towards the elevator doors and nothing else.

The only things missing were the red sweep-analysis lights in his lenses.

V took a deep breath and eyed the laboring woven cables of the climbing cabin.

_Can this be any goddamn slower?!_

_Ding_.

The mismatched group orderly entered the elevator.

Then came the awkward talk of _‘which floor are you going to?’_ , _‘ah, lower than me’, ‘no, mine’s first’_. V tapped her fingers on the side of her thigh, watching the giggly and tipsy group try and figure out in what order they were going to alight. Once everything was sorted, she held her place next to the control panel, pressed her back onto the advert wall, and watched.

The group, as expected, had taken the middle space of the elevator and continued their blabber. Goro retreated to the opposite side, facing away from the clamor. A wash of yellow light colored the cabin, from whatever ad was playing simultaneously on all the screens.

Johnny’s voice caught tone in her ears, though still disembodied and only lodged into her memory.

Their worlds were never meant to collide. The universe was there to remind her.

And she was running out of time to plead her case before it.

There was no time for a developing relationship, only for awkward moments in the outdoor hallway of a megabuilding. She had tried to argue against Hellman’s word, she had tried to place her hope in Evelyn’s help, she desperately wanted to share Goro’s conviction that Hanako may hold the antidote.

But in her heart of hearts, she knew that the poison was lining her arteries.

It was selfish of her to have even given the first voice to this desire.

Her gaze has fallen to the lights outside the elevator’s window, regaining focus as Goro shifted from one foot to the other. He turned to her. The fine lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled further, and his cyberware was pushed upwards by softly puffed cheeks.

But _by God_ , how much she wanted to be selfish.

She bit her lip.

His nostrils flared.

An electrifying jolt surged up her spine.

The 8th floor was reached faster than it could have been expected, with two of the travelers stopping on higher floors. They were greeted by chatter - fervent, from those who had yet to sleep, and lethargic from those who had just woken up. The gym next to the elevator was lively, filled with people who wanted to take advantage of the quiet and uncrowded equipment areas at half past three in the morning. Naturally, everyone seemed to have had the same idea. Heavy noises of metal on metal echoed in the hallway, and enough disoriented residents had bumped into V that she considered grabbing Goro by the hand, to guide them quicker through the sleepy crowd.

Somehow, the action felt too forward at this point in time.

The last leg of the journey was uneventful, only stopping to throw away the takeaway bag, and they reached her apartment door.

“Well, this is it,” V made a broad motion with her arm as she stepped into the open-space square room. “Welcome to the fanciest pace money can rent on 8 floors of the H10 building.”

“ _Ojyamashimasu_ ,” Goro intoned behind her.

As always, her eye lens picked the cue. The word appeared in red font, its letters arranging themselves as the translator processed his voice’s signal. _‘Sorry for intruding’_ was finally formed.

She frowned.

_Intruding?_

V turned to him, ready to clarify the misunderstanding, but Goro was already assessing the place, relaxed and unfazed.

There was not much to analyze, but she supposed it was a reflex that came with the job. She almost shrugged her shoulders as she followed his gaze towards the simple built-in wardrobe hidden behind smoked plexiglass, to the shelves filled with knick-knacks, the lounging area where the ad projector was spinning colorful images, and finally the window, whose blinds had remained open from the previous morning when she had left the apartment.

“Make yourself at home. You can leave your coat anywhere you want,” she said, exemplifying by throwing her own jacket on the back of her desk’s chair.

Pressing forward into the room, she stretched her arms and shoulders. The city was always beautiful at this hour, when the silence and serenity seemed to suspend the people in time, glazing over the buildings, streets and the sky like amber. Nothing and no one could wash out the colorful neon lights, but even they appeared to embrace the sluggish pace. An AV trailed from one side of the city to the other, cutting the skyline like a bumblebee fattened with nectar.

Which made it all the more easy to not lose her focus.

Goro had finished folding his coat methodically and with rehearsed precision, and was not placing it on the seat. With her best saunter, V approached him and placed her palms over his chest. Raising her mouth to be just below his lips.

“Now, where were we?”

He shook his head amused. “The right course of action often requires patience above all. The first step was to get out of unwanted sight. The second is to get rid of battle grime.”

“You’re talking as if this is all some big strategy.”

“I never said it wasn’t.”

V trailed a nail over his pectorals. “And if I say that I can’t wait?”

It was his moment to lean lower, low enough that a kiss was only a breath away. He held them in heated suspense, as if waiting for the clock to strike the next hour.

She wet her lips.

Her body was already aching.

“Then we will endure together,” Goro finally concluded, and walked further into the room.

V scoffed toward his back.

_You’re impossible._

“I will wait for you to be ready,” he said, and covertly did a motion that she was certain she was not meant to see.

With all that talk about patience, he unbuttoned his cufflinks and stopped himself from reaching his collar button.

As if she wouldn’t catch this.

“So chivalrous,” V purred. “My bathroom doesn’t have a door, so… no peeking.”

“You have my word,” Goro said, approaching the window to seal the promise.

V pursed her lips.

_That’s not... What I meant…_

It was no use to argue, as the man assumed his bodyguard stance yet again, unmoving and undeterred. She resigned to the unforeseen turn of events and proceeded to get everything ready: fetching him a clean towel from the drawers next to the wardrobe, checking if her hot pink and gold leopard print bathrobe was next to the shower, and finding herself a hair tie. There was a brief moment where a devious thought crossed her mind: to undress in the main room, for Goro to watch her reflection in the window’s glass.

_No._

Too much, too fast.

And yet too little, and not quick enough.

So she undressed in the bathroom, leaving the clothes in as neat of a pile as possible next to the sink, tied her hair up and hopped in the shower. The warm water was soothing her tense muscles, washing away any signs of the earlier battle - physical or mental.

Goro was right.

This was a good step to the strategy.

“All yours,” V said, exiting the bathroom in an aggressively floral scent cloud, wiping her cheek with the bathrobe’s fluffy sleeve. “The towel is on the closest hook to the shower.”

He turned to her with a bit more urgency than she expected to see. Giving only a curt nod, their positions were swapped.

She sat herself on the edge of her bed, bundling up into the bathrobe. Next to her pillow was a square ashtray. Prior to the relic she had barely touched cigarettes, yet she picked up the habit when Johnny’s incessant whining for a smoke was keeping her up at night.

And she couldn’t tell if it was a placebo or not, but it managed to take her mind off the stress of the day, the relic or… the future.

She gingerly picked up the glass ashtray and placed it on the table in the lounging area. She began searching the shelves for the jars of Omega blockers that Misty gave her, and noticed that she was running low on them.

Less than half the initial amount.

Out of all the times the pills were needed, she felt that today had been truly the best time to take them. Neither men should be subjected to each other - Goro to having Johnny be a spectator in such an intimate moment, or Johnny to have to be an unwilling participant.

 _No,_ she thought, fishing out two pills to be downed for good measure. _It wouldn’t be right_.

On the backdrop of the splashing coming from the shower, she did not know what to do with herself. Fidgeting, neatening out the bedsheets, running her fingers through her hair.

Suddenly, she felt nervous.

From the moment he had stolen her breath in Tom’s Diner with the simple statement of _‘V, I need you_ ’ and until now, never once she had felt nervous like this in his presence before. He was not her first either.

It must’ve had something to do with him being her _last_.

Swallowing the knot that formed in her throat, she approached the vending machine built into the wall. She had to push a bit harder for the selection, to encourage the sensors to acknowledge the finger press, and navigated to the ‘adult’ selection. Another press later, and a condom wrapper was dispensed in the tray.

And with that, there were no other things she could busy herself with.

She let out a low giggle at herself.

It had been a date alright. He picked her up, had dinner, a heartfelt conversation, and the date was concluded with bringing him to her place. Standard issue night. With a touch of Night City flair, in the form of the explosive gunfight.

How… surprising.

The water stopped. The scented vapors of her shower gel enveloped her again.

Goro stepped out of the bathroom and she couldn’t help but stare.

Beads of water were still dripping from the few strands that were soaked. His cyberware, red and glistening in the soft light, was covering his entire neck and extended lower into his shoulders and pectorals, framing the taut muscles in dark chrome. It was now clear why he had no issue in assuming any role in their missions, as he looked more than competent in hand to hand combat.

And no wonder how he held his own in training Oda, who she now knew was a killing machine with unlimited reserves of stamina.

The towel was wrapped tightly around his waist.

She found him staring as well. Lips parted just barely. Her bathrobe had opened just a little in her motion, exposing her clavicles and chest.

He raised his hand, holding it between them.

Her breath slowed.

She could feel the honeycomb pattern on her lungs expand with each sharp gulp of air.

It would be so easy for him to slip his hands under the robe’s collar.

And how much she _needed_ him to.

Instead, he cupped her jawline in a gentle hold. Their lips met. Cold water beads dripped from his beard onto her chin, and his mustache tickled her. She couldn’t help a smile, and she felt his lips curl in a mirror image as he enveloped her with his free arm. She draped her arms around his shoulders, heart pounding faster than in the midst of battle.

If there had been any battle between them, she would gladly give him the win.

Every breath she took was filled with the synthetic scent of lavender, his potent cologne barely still peeking through. Her lips parted, seeking more closeness than their tangled arms could give.

And he eagerly provided.

Perhaps they had both won the fight.

In a dizzying sway, he guided them towards the bed, slowly backing her onto the mattress.

She gasped.

As if in complete accord with each other, his hands began exploring at her uncovered skin, under the edges of the bathrobe. Caressing, trailing, _teasing_.

_More. More. More._

She reached for the cord and untied the robe. Goro pinned her eyes with his, chest raising with a deep breath.

“This should be easier,” she breathed, wetting her lips.

His nostrils flared, but he didn’t move.

“Tell me… what you want me to do.”

His voice was almost shaky with ardor, and her body shivered in delight all over.

It was not often that she was left with no reply, and out of all times all she could do was guide his hand.

From her clavicle, to her sternum, to the curve of her breast.

It took him no time to understand, and to follow the trail with a scathing row of kisses.

She arched under his touch.

There could have been no warning that this was where they would end up being. Barely weeks passed since the day he had scooped her out of the landfill, Dexter’s bullet still frying her coprocessor’s circuits. How much anger she had had for him once she woke up, on a highway outside Night City with Arasaka assassin’s sicced onto them.

His hand caressed her breast, while his tongue tended to the other.

A low moan escaped her. His towel was undone fast, and she attempted to conduct her own exploration, pushing herself up on her elbow. She only managed to trace his chest, ribs and waist, before his hand stopped her as she reached coarse hair.

He kissed her fingertips.

_Not the time?_

Oh, but how fickle time was.

It had taken her no time to realize that she had to ally with the one that smacked her into unconsciousness, hurling her back into the cold Void she had barely managed to escape from. It took her no time at all to trace his fuzzy features, desperately clinging onto them as he followed Delamain’s instructions to keep her alive. It took her vision no time at all to find him again as they stumbled into Vik’s clinic. Latching onto it to keep her grounded and awake, as his knees collapsed next to the wheel.

_‘Don’t worry about me. Tend to her first.’_

“Goro…” she moaned, as his deft fingers pushed the robe out of the way and settled between her legs.

Soft touches teased at her skin.

His eyes, his smiles, smirks, words, movements… all teased in unison from her mind’s eye. If only she had known that she didn’t read them wrong. If only she knew when they planned the infiltration… if only she knew when they had done their reconnaissance. She could have reached for him, leaning as they were over the railing, run her fingers over his cheekbones, ears, hair…

She arched under his touch, his tongue and his finger. She closed her eyes and cried out his name, and with each syllable his movements hastened. Her right leg was draped over his back, his cyberware felt cold under her thigh. The bedsheet gathered in a clump into her fist. Goro languidly ran his palm over her side, up to her ribs.

She gasped a moan.

He was so gentle.

So painfully gentle.

Never in all the time she had known him did she think he would be this way. The Arasaka soldier, the impulsive man who almost fought Tom, the ruthless bodyguard, stoic and unwilling to laugh at most of her earlier attempts at jokes…

Now tender and sweet.

All her instincts screamed at her to let the flame burn fast and bright - it was the way it had always been in her past relationships. The city was cruel and unforgiving for any of them who lived their lives by the rules of the streets. Each month a new soul was collected by the machine, by violence or sickness. Not many people could claim that their days weren’t numbered, and not many had the privilege of not caring about it either.

And now was no different.

Her hourglass was nearing its emptiness.

 _Burn fast and bright_. _No deep attachments means lessening the heartbreak_.

But Goro was slow in his movements, exploring, caressing, treating her as if time itself stopped for them, the world outside held its breath, and no one else existed but them.

And slow and careful was his slide into the union, letting her feel the entirety of his throbbing length. The condom wrapper was thrown hastily onto the floor.

“Valerie,” he said in a ragged breath, with the power and heat of a thousand coals, all burning in a titanic blaze.

She brought him closer, crashing their lips together. Her trembling hands reached his topknot, tugging at the hair tie.

A cascade of sleek strands brushed over her temples.

And she moaned in his mouth as he began to move his hips.

Her eyes reached their zenith.

Her lids opened, heavy as lead. And he was lidded too, hazy and bleared. His long raven hair reached well past his shoulders, and the strands swayed fluidly and mesmerizing with each of his quickening movements.

Goro laced his fingers with hers, pinning their hands on the side of her head.

His eyes crinkled, in the most disarmingly sincere smile she had ever been given.

There was no need to interpret the emotion behind them.

 _Love_.

Pure, plain, and with an earnesty that even the most capable deceivers would find it impossible to replicate.

Her throat constricted and V felt her eyes well up.

The month’s events came crashing against her all at once. The heist, Jackie, Johnny’s memories, Evelyn, Judy, Panam, the scav den in which she almost met her maker... Yet she would not be here without him, and he was so, _utterly_ sure that she would survive.

That they _would_ have a future past this month.

A tear slid over her cheek.

And she was beginning to be a fool enough to believe him.

Goro raised his gaze to meet hers.

In what felt like only one heartbeat, he pulled himself out, cupped her cheeks with both his hands and searched her face frantically.

_Worried?_

“Am I hurting you?”

A laugh croaked out her throat. “No…”

She swallowed back her unshed tears, and they dissolved in one big smile.

“So, so far from it,” she continued, her voice becoming smaller and smaller until it was just a whisper.

He squeezed his eyes shut and their lips met again. She could taste herself on his tongue, and his mustache was a lavender field.

Emboldened this time, she nudged him onto the side, straddling his hips. The bathrobe was quickly thrown away on the floor. His hands found their way onto her backside, and her own thumb brushed over his lower lip.

It was 4 AM by now.

Sunrise may just have to find them still awake.

***

There was an unusual silence.

Johnny’s voice had become an expected backdrop for all her dreams, yet tonight he was as quiet as the bare plains outside Night City. He used to interject and mutate whatever images played inside her mind, trying to take control and revisit his own memories or explore his own imagination at the expense of hers. Like… two siblings fighting for a remote.

Not a word.

Not a strummed chord, nor the thick smoke of a cigarette.

_Ah._

The answer should have been obvious.

_I took three Omega blockers._

He’ll be out until the next day at the very least.

Her eyes fluttered open.

In front was a sight she never thought that she would see outside her dreams.

Goro was propped up, with his back onto the wall, reading one of the entertainment magazines that she’d randomly picked up after a gig. His long grizzled hair draped over his shoulder, swirled around the back of his neck. The few rays of sunshine that entered the room casted his bare skin in a muted glow, and the thin blanket barely covered him.

She felt heat in her cheeks.

 _Right_.

The exhaustion of the day had finally reached them, and they went to bed without much care for clothes.

A quick glance, and Goro noticed that she was awake.

“Good morning,” he greeted sweetly, closing the magazine in his lap.

“Morning.”

A deep yawn interrupted her, and she buried her face back into the pillow - she had caught one of the intrusive rays. He reached out to her, caressing her shoulders with all the gentleness that his calloused fingers could muster.

“What time is it?” V asked, muffled by the pillow.

“Mid-day, I would guess.”

“Oh great,” she mumbled. “I was supposed to call Regina this morning… I hope you didn’t have any missions assigned to you for the day.”

Goro chuckled, but did not answer.

What followed was comfortable silence. Neither of them wanted to get out of bed and break the serene spell they were under.

How wonderful it would have been if they could stay there forever...

“Is this what you want?” Goro said in a low voice.

“What do you mean? Is waking up next to each other not nice? I guess we could have a better bed…”

She had tried for a joke, but he didn’t laugh.

“From… life. Is…”

V propped herself up on her elbows, encouraging him with her eyebrows to continue.

He avoided her gaze and instead looked towards her bookshelf, as if the titles on the spines could hold an answer.

“I am an Arasaka soldier,” he continued carefully. “First and foremost. I owe my life to the corporation, and I took a vow that I will serve the will of Arasaka _-sama_. In life, I would follow him to the edge of the Earth. In death, I would ensure that his memory is left pristine and untainted. My vow now asks me to avenge his death.”

He stopped again. His eyes seemed to point somewhere far away.

“When, and only when this last task for Arasaka _-sama_ would be completed… I will be a soldier without greater purpose.”

V watched him find his words, wide-eyed. An itch in her palm emboldened her to grab his hand, and instead she curled her fingers into a fist.

“I wish to find a new purpose," Goro said. "...as a nomad. You have no reason to leave your home behind, but... “

He took a deep breath.

And spoke again, softer this time. “I am aware of our differences. I am much older than you are. I have served in a corporation’s military. Even my adaptation to the food here has been hard. Would this… be something you wish for the future?”

There it was.

Her eyes welled up again.

As if she hadn’t cried enough in one night.

She wet her lips and swallowed the knot that formed in her throat. She tried to think of something reassuring to say...

So she settled on a joke.

“That just means an _‘old dog will finally learn new tricks_ ’, right?” V said with a half-smile.

And Goro finally chuckled again.

With a hand placed on his shoulder, she dragged him lower, pressing their lips together. A deep kiss, filled with all the love she dared to put into it. Hoping that he will feel the affection just the way she did from his.

Unspoken as the words were.

“And we’ll find you some nicer food,” she continued. “Maybe you’ll learn some petty thievery for some fresh tomatoes.”

Goro shook his head amused, and wrapped his arms around her.

“Oh, and remind me to get my rifle from your car. The ones I have here aren’t as good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, folks! A big thank you to everyone who has been along for the ride ❤ Thank you to everyone who has left kudos, bookmarks and all the thoughtful comments, as well as everyone who has chosen to get spammed by email by all my updates haha!! 
> 
> An extra special thank you to Alexis_Trvlyn, for all her amazing support, beta-reading and generally being a very dear friend throughout ❤
> 
> If anyone is interested in reading more about Valerie and Goro, I have started a post-Devil ending fic from Goro's POV where V rejected the offer of Mikoshi, called [Singularity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29379924/chapters/72173238).


End file.
